Hey America! “When Is The First Time You Used A Swear Word?”

Pop "Pop" Walters, former headmaster and head grammarian and language expert here at Unfettered Letters., has instituted a new feature in which we scan the shores and sidestreets of this great country of ours to find out how Americans just like you first used swear words when they were just tiny tikes. There are some wonderful, heartwarming stories out there that will warm your cockles and even might make you wince a bit in recognition. So, without further ado, here we go!

Joe Furnby (age 71, Lowell, Massachusetts): Oh, boy, this brings back memories. Sheesh! Hooh, boy.  I have to take you all the way back through the shifting tides of time to when I was in the fifth grade. And I’m no spring chicken. It was a time when Norman Rockwell was on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, we all still listened nightly with bated breath to grand ole radio shows like The Shadow, and we had just finished World War II, fighting the Germans in the last great noble war the U.S. ever waged. There was such a spirit of togetherness and unity back then. It was a simpler, more honest, more innocent era. My elementary school teacher was Mr. Reichstaff. He was a kindly old gentleman with a big reddish nose and a lovely temperment. He really cherished us kids. Good old Mr. Reichstaff. Well, when I was nine years old I was quite a naughty little guy, I can tell you that. Me and my best friend Pug Face Pete had just learned about swear words and we were wont to giggle in the back of the classroom about the different ones we had heard come out of the mouths of adults. One day Mr. Reichstaff comes up to me and asks me for my homework, and without missing a beat, I turned to him like the mini ruffian and scoundrel I was, and said, "What’s it to you, you goddamn kraut Nazi bastard fuck!?

It just popped out. We were such rascals in those days. I think Mr. Reichstaff was kind of taken aback, but I swear that I saw him tilt his head, raise his eyebrows ever so slightly, and give me that "oh, you kids!" look. He humored us. If I remember correctly, he even ruffled my hair.

It’s kind of sad, too, because two years later they found Mr. Reichstaff in his basement, hanging from the rafters. He was clutching a picture of Goethe and had also slashed his wrists. There was an old record of German folk songs like "Mein Hinterlassen Girl" still playing on his Victrola. We all found out that he had run into trouble with the immigration authorities, and some neighbors had reported him to local policemen who then accused him of having been a leader of Hitler Youth back in the old country. It later turned out the policemen were corrupt and wrong about Mr. Reichstaff, but it was too late.

I’ll always have fond remembrances of a time gone by, a dear old teacher, and the very first time I used a swear word.
 

Posted by The Unfettered Editorial Staff on 7:39 pm Filed under All The Latest, Culturcide. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry