The Day My Father Swore

In between his 2-year tours of duty in the Navy my brother and his family came home to Buffalo and often moved in with us.  After a two week break he would go onto his next assignment, arrange for housing, and get settled into new his job while his wife and kids stayed behind for a couple of months.  The time he was off to the Aleutian Islands, my nephews were 8 and 6 and my niece was 3 and the boys started school at my alma mater and where they would return several years later.  One night after homework and dinner, Rusty, the oldest, said he needed more glue for his model airplane project.  Being a fairly new and proud driver, I volunteered to take him to the store. 

We hopped in the green Rambler and headed off to Miller’s Pharmacy, an early version of a CVS where shoppers could find a little bit of everything.  He got his glue and I bought a Seventeen magazine. Backing out of the parking space I hit a pole. We were both ok (this was before seatbelts), however the rear bumper had a big dent.

I dreaded pulling into the driveway.  Rusty thought it was a great adventure and ran into the house announcing that, “We hit a fence!”  Out came my father.  He bent down, surveyed the damage, and said, “All for a G*****M tube of glue.”

That was the first time I ever heard my father swear.   It was also the last.

It’s not that we were prudes or that he didn’t get angry or that we lived in Mayberry.  It was just a different time in our culture.  Some of my friends tried out an occasional swear word, more for affect and reaction than any real sense of it being part of our day-to-day language.  One aunt and uncle had a little saltier tongue, but it was more prejudicial than profane.

I’m known in my circle for not having a particularly broad range of curse words and for using them sparingly, even when losing at cards.  Some friends, I suspect, temper their language around me, and I’m amazed at people who are capable of that type of editing and who show that type of restraint.  It's like they are bi-lingual.

My confession is that I do swear when I’m alone and irritated such as when I’ve dropped something in the kitchen, or forgotten an important step in a task, or am stuck behind an annoying driver.  Again, it’s not that I’m a prude.  It’s just that I remember being so shocked the day my father swore that I try to save my public swearing for the most severe infractions.  That way people know I’m serious.  It’s rather like this quote from Mark Twain, “In certain trying circumstances, desperate circumstances, urgent circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even in prayer.”

Marilyn