Around this time of year, my thoughts often drift back to schools days, so many decades ago.

I always looked forward to seeing my friends again, but there were a few authority figures I could do without.

A principal we called “sausage fingers” was probably the highest on that list. To a Grade 8 kid, he was an imposing figure. He must have weighed at least 350 pounds, girth he didn’t mind throwing around.

The year was 1972 and corporal punishment was still permitted by the Simcoe County Board of Education.

Being a bit of a brat in those days, I had my run-ins with old sausage fingers, landing on the business end of the strap on one occasion.

My crime? Some buddies and I were caught jumping out the window of a school portable after sneaking in during lunch hour to visit some goody two-shoes girlfriends who volunteered to clean blackboards.

The strap was a pinkish, leathery thing about one-inch thick. To this day, I swear sausage fingers left his feet as he brought it down on my hand.

No doubt, it left an impression. But I’m not sure it altered my troublemaking ways. Minutes after sausage fingers had meted out his punishment, my buddies and I were laughing uncontrollably, although our guffaws were mixed with tears of pain.

Sausage fingers walked in on us and boiled over. His bloated face burst into a red rage as he picked up a school desk with one hand and tossed it.

We shut up instantly, our chuckles stifled by sheer shock.

I wonder if sausage fingers ever reflected on his over-the-top treatment of three mischievous 12-year-olds.

One thing for certain, he didn’t have to worry about the wrath of our parents, let alone a parent council.

These days, thank goodness, things are different. Principals and teachers are caught in a politically correct world — the discipline they hand out is watched carefully. More often than not, that’s a positive progression.

Perhaps, I’m a little jaded after my experience with old sausage fingers and numerous other experiences of physical discipline, but I believe society is much better off without corporal punishment.

Incredibly, corporal punishment is still legal in 22 American states. And it wasn’t until 2004 that the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in an Alberta case that straps couldn’t be used in schools. Teachers can still use some “corrective force” to subdue an out-of-control child, but physical punishment goes well past that benchmark.

There are still those who say sparing the rod has taken an element of control out of our teachers’ hands, creating kids who don’t respect authority.

But I never did respect that burly principal or any others who meted out discipline with a strap, ruler or vicious tug of the ear. Perhaps I feared them a little, but there was never any respect.

Gaining the respect of students takes much more than ruling with an iron fist. Teachers these days have to use their hearts and imaginations when it comes to dealing with difficult students.

It’s a difficult job — much tougher than wielding a strap. But it will create better memories — and better people — down the road.