I was fortunate enough to grow up in the rural South just after World War II, the child of two very talented people who married before they learned they hated each other. Thankfully alcohol was plentiful back then, and when my mother used to get mad at my brother and sister and I, we were only 18 and 14 months apart, she would scream, "You little bastards are lucky that alcohol was served at the parties we attended or you wouldn't be here!"
I was very young and she would often use the term bastard, in reference to us, and I was unable to conceptualize its meaning, at around 2.5 yrs old I felt sure a "bastard" might be the coffee cup advertised on the Maxwell House can which shows a cup tipped with a lonely drop of coffee spilling out. Hey I thought, it looks like a basket, maybe that is a bastard. I do not want to sully my mother's memory, for we were particularly mischievous children, and earned all her scorn. At bath time if left unattended, which we were, from time to time, my three year old brother and I would stand in the tub and kick our legs back and forth furiously splashing the water out onto the bathroom floor in such quantities it ran down the hall towards the kitchen. Children have a knack for picking up on bad words, ever notice that? Say "son of a bitch" in front of a toddler and see what his favorite new phrase becomes if you do not believe me.
Our corporate sponsor today is "Maxwell House Coffee, Good To The Last Drop"! From the edge of a bastard to your taste buds.
Our family settled in a small southern town in West Tennessee in 1958 where my mother got a job teaching school and father pursued his dream of writing. He was 30 yrs old with a wife and three kids and in-laws of means, who chipped in to help with the bills while he worked over a type writer in the back room of my grandfather's medical clinic. Middling success came three years later and he struck gold in 1965. During those early days we played with the poor whites, my mother dubbed, "Crappy-Landers" because they lived in small houses built on the edge of town by and for the poor.
We lived across the street from the elementary school playground, and were affluent enough to have a basketball. Each afternoon, a group of crappy-landers would knock on our door and ask if they could use our basketball. My brother and I agreed but only if we could play. They would agree and though they were 10 to 13 yr olds and we were only 5 and 6, they would play their game and every once in a great while pass my brother or me the ball and back away and let us take a wild shot. We formed many friendships during those times and if we were ever threatened by bullies at the local park, many older boys from crappy-land would come to our defense. We lived in a sweet spot in our little town.
One of the advantages of playing with the crappy-landers was the wonderful language you would pick up on the courts. Terms like "shit-ass, asshole, monkey-nuts, queer, peter-eater", were routinely bantered about along with God-Damn, and the f word. When I was 5 I recall asking an older crappy-lander what means f word, and when he told me "you put your peter in a girls hole and move it around until it squirts something into her." How could anybody do such a thing? I wrongly wondered. We grew up around kids who cussed like sailors, and we cussed routinely.
I recall an uncomfortable event when only 10 screaming at Sniffy Dupree, an aptly named fellow for his seasonal allergies condemned him to a constantly running nose which required a long sleeve shirt in the summer to wipe his lip followed by a long sniffing sound to ebb the copious flow of snot from poor little Sniffy, when he missed an easy pop fly while we were playing baseball in a pals back yard. My taunt at Sniffy follows: "God-damn-it, Sniffy catch the fucking ball!" My pals mother was at the back porch watching the game and when she heard my blasphemous taunt, she came out mad as hell.
"All right, boys if you are going to talk like that the game is over. Go home. Go home!" Everybody did not appreciate the language we acquired in our youth. Cussing is an under appreciated art form. Not everybody can do it. But I could. It came quite naturally to me. It still pours out of my throat with little effort and very little concern.
There were many nicknames given kids back then with no regards to political correctness. There was a kid with simian qualities about his face and his moniker was "Monkey". Everybody called him "Monkey" even his mother called him this and there were no hard feelings. He was a year older than me and decided to beat me up after school one day for sport for I was a small child, but my older brother saw it unfolding and he was big and loved to stomp people for the slightest provocation and he came over and bloodied Monkey's nose. I never had another problem with Monkey after that.
I have always been lucky like that.
I have not been active here because I have been busy working the farm and flying airplanes hither and yon. I got my private pilots license in 1988 and flew regularly for about 16 yrs and gave it up for Lent one year and came back to it a couple of years ago. I have become comfortable with flying after a 10 year absence only recently. I have had a plane for 18 months now and have flown a lot in the past few months. I recommend flying highly. It is a beautiful way to travel, but respect for gravity and weather is an absolute. I have survived flying into a snow storm at night in Wyoming without an instrument rating in a small single engine aircraft near a 11,400ft mountain. Never did that again, which is probably why you are reading this today.
I have been thinking about the trouble in the Middle East, with the refugees. Strange most of the pics coming out of Europe show military aged males pouring over the borders. Is it an invasion of Europe? I believe it is. Is the mess stirred up in the ME by our leaders with its seemingly unintended consequence of a massive migration of a conquering army sent to disrupt the European economy which will only serve to strengthen the US Dollar and keep our federal bankers spewing money out like hot ash from Mt Vesuvius? Follow the geopolitical fallout. I think this was the plan all along.
Nothing is happenstance.
Personally if I was a European I would not allow any military aged single man into my country because it is begging for trouble. The trouble with the Middle East is that sooner or later your run out of goats. They have run out of goats and this will be an horrific nightmare for the Europeans.
I have coined a term for these Middle Eastern Military aged males who could be called "Sandies" and their female counterparts "Sandra's". It is not intended to be harsh and it may or may not stick. But I feel it has possibilities. I toyed with "Kneelers" but thought it too politically incorrect.
My last great thought pertains to the Washington Redskins and its name brouhaha which is the latest liberal bastard poster child looking for a solution. Change the name from Washington Redskins to Washington's Fighting Imams.
Jackson Delano Maybolt, President Urban Poverty Law Center
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