Originally published in the Grand Rapids Business Journal, March 1, 2004.

From ages 5 through 9, my family lived in Gaffney, South Carolina, which is in the Piedmont region. I believe "Piedmont" is a Cherokee word for "red clay" or "toaster strudel" (or I'm just making this up). Anyway, the point is that there were lots of hills and lots of red clay.

Once upon a time, my brother and I and the Williams boys set out on a fine summer day to enjoy the out of doors. Truth is, we were likely trying to find someplace far enough away from our houses where we could light a pine needle fire and not get caught. There was nothing more enthralling than a pile of burning pine needles 'cause you can blow on it and all the embers just glow!

Well maybe we did burn some pine needles, but we soon found a big red clay hill, and we spent most of the day sliding down it, bumpity bump bump bump. Sounds like it would hurt, doesn't it? It would now, but when you're stick-thin with not enough buttock to make one decent cheek, you can slide down a pumice hill in a thong -- there was simply nothing there to cause friction.

By the time we came home for supper the bottoms of our blue jeans were red, our whitey-tighties were red, and our shiny heinies were red.

Mom, to her credit, didn't freak or get too mad even though the red clay is nothing if not tenacious -- it doesn't just stain, it bonds and then compromises the genetic code of all it contacts. However, she made it absolutely clear that we were not to go sliding down that hill again. There would be significant punishment.

So the next morning we met up with the Williams boys, went back to the same hill, and did the exact thing we did the previous day. It's not like we made a judgment call and weighed the fun against the level of punishment. We just never considered it. And the likely consequence for the Williams boys was having their Mom slash them across the legs with a switch! (A switch being a fresh sapling cut off a convenient tree -- switches are ideally suited for cutting through the air and small children.)

As for this week's comic: In Michigan, there have been rumblings of bringing back the death penalty. (We actually haven't had it since the mid-1800s.) Tragically, two Detroit police officers were murdered recently, which has precipitated the rumblings. I think the aim of most folks who want the killers punished is true. Here's an understatement: It's human to want revenge.

But because I remember so well the mind of an eight year-old boy and how it lives entirely in the moment, I've always had trouble with the notion of the death penalty being a deterrent to crime. Rational people would like to think that it is. Irrational people sometimes use it as a thinly disguised veil for vengeance. What we all really want is justice.

And in the long run, you hope that justice is served. For me, I'm still hopin' someday this red clay will wear off my bottom....