I Swear I Curse
My wife and me we’re married for close to 50 years. I’ve had a bad habit of calling myself a name after doing something dumb. It drove her wild. She would threaten to use a Willow switch on me if I didn’t stop it. I always seemed to belittle myself for doing something wrong. Now in my old age, I do things that are even dumber. My wife has gone to be with the Lord. Her physical presence is no longer here. As I grow older and become more of a klutz, I catch myself swearing at my actions more. Everything I put in my hands gets dropped. Hearing aid batteries are the worst culprit. They hit the floor multiple times as they are made ready for each ear. That still creates a verbal barrage as I swear at myself, alone here in my humble abode. Why do this just for being disappointed in myself? It now brings out an unhappy female spirit stalking about carrying a very stout shillelagh each time I start a tirade. The conflicting ties that bind. An oxymoron? It might get me to quit that bad habit under these unique circumstances.
Being disappointed in self should not bring out swear words. This got to the point I asked myself, “why do people swear?” You hear young people swearing a lot, yet they are not disappointed. There must be another triggering device. I believe human nature leads us to copy what others do. Monkey see monkey do too. If people your around swear you automatically follow their lead, so you’re accepted as one of them. If you’re in a crowd where nobody is swearing, and you still swear you stand out as the different one also. If we do enough swearing, it follows us no matter where we go. It becomes second nature.
We had an old blacksmith one time his hands and fingers always seemed to be bandaged from burning them or waking them with hammers. I don’t imagine he said “Praise the Lord” after hurting himself, but I never did hear him use the Lords name in vain. He had a sign hanging in his workshop, “Swearing shows your intelligence.” He must have been offended by swearing and the sign reminded people of that.
As a youngster growing up one of our aunts was determined to have authority over her domain and swearing. She had a bar of soap that served the purpose of cleaning up language, it only needed one application in most cases. There were no swear words said in her presence or on her property.
We grew up on a farm me and two brothers. Two of us were less than a year apart, it was rumored that mother had some anxiety trouble once. I can imagine there were many times when she felt like a mother duck trying to get a dozen duckling across the freeway.
When she took us to visit at our aunt’s house, we naturally became acquainted with the soap dish quite fast. My aunt knew the language we were listening to at home because our dad was her brother, and she had to grow up with him. Dad claimed the use of colorful adjectives was to make his point of view more clear, that it did. That is undoubtedly where the soap bar idea came from. I have decided as far as foul language is concerned, society will get back what they put into it. We are all that we accept good or bad.
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