The Cuss Word Kids

I spent most of my single-digit years in a tiny Northwest Georgia mill town called Aragon. Population: ~1,000.

My best friend lived next door.

We did everything together. Rode bikes, climbed trees, formed clubs, built forts, shot at each other with BB guns, went skinny-dipping, threw rock at cars. Everything.

One day, and I’m guessing we were 8 or 9 years old, my friend decided we should start cussing.

The exact announcement went thusly: “I think we should start cussing.”

That wasn’t my favorite idea, because it seemed like it might get us in trouble. But what good is peer pressure if you can’t leverage it to get a partner in crime? So I agreed.

We weren’t ever going to use the big ones, like what used to be called ‘taking the Lord’s name in vain.’

And while we knew the f-bomb, I doubt we were capable of using it in a sentence.

So we played in the shallow end. Lots of ‘damn’ and ‘hell,’ with maybe an ‘ass’ tossed in.

So the conversations would go like this:

“What in the hell are we going to do today?”

“We could ride our damn bikes to the damn store.”

“I don’t have any damn money.” (We never had any damn money. A damn Co-cola was only a damn nickel, but you still needed a damn nickel.)

“Well, hell, let’s climb the damn tree.”

The damn tree grew beside the damn garage, so once up there you could sit on top of the damn garage. It was one of several damn clubhouses.

Our cussing days didn’t last even one day. It was so contrived, it was work to think of how to use a cuss word. Completely unnatural.

So, we cussed out very quickly.

Thinking back on it now, it was a pretty damn stupid idea. But for an hour or so, we were some baaad-ass boys!