The F-Bomb

One of the benefits of having lived into middle-age is that I have been around long enough to be able to observe relatively long-term changes in our society based on first-hand experience.  I remember quite a bit from my very early childhood, so I have fifty-plus years of life on which to base those observations.

A change in societal norms that I never would have expected in my childhood, or even my early adulthood, is today's casual use of what I used to consider the granddaddy of all swear words, a mostly unspeakable term that was generally used only by the coarsest of people, or rarely, in extreme cases, by more civilized people:  the F-bomb.

I know that my negative attitude about this word was probably stronger than other people's.  When we were children, my mother was determined that my siblings and I would avoid the use of strong language, despite conflicting influences from our father, who occasionally peppered his speech with what we considered  Soldier Talk.  Our mother strictly prohibited such talk among us children.   In fact,  along with Dad's Soldier-Talk words, Mom included among the words we were not allowed to utter  the N-word (which was acceptable by some people in those days),"shut-up," "stupid," and "idiot."   I internalized her admonitions about "bad words" to such an extent that I remember once being shocked at the description of a lizard I read in a book I had selected from my second-grade teacher's shelf of books for us to read:  stupid.  For me, that word made it a "nasty book."  I shut the book immediately and returned it to the bookshelf where I had found it, wondering if the teacher knew about the scandalous language it contained.

I am not criticizing my mother's efforts to teach us about appropriate language.  Such motherly efforts were the norm in the 50s and 60s.   She wanted our language to be acceptable in any situation, and she wanted us to speak kindly to everyone, never hurtfully. If my childish perspective did not yet allow me to perceive the difference in degree between "stupid lizard" and "f*** you," that wasn't her fault.

Despite my  not quite grasping some of the subtleties of bad words in those days, I knew that the F-bomb was in a league by itself. Kids I knew would occasionally say "damn" or make a reference to to bodily excrement, but the F-word was rarely heard. Sometimes a rebel child might write it surreptitiously on the sidewalk with a chalk-rock. A more daring kid might slip it into a rendition of the Name Game song, especially if he knew someone named Chuck. But even when Dad was using his Soldier Talk, I never heard him say that word.

The BBMFIC

In fact, I have vivid memory from when I was about 10 years old of learning that some of Dad's soldiers routinely referred to him as "the BBMFIC." Upon hearing this term applied to my dad, I asked him what it stood for.  (I was always an inquisitive child.)   I remember my mom giving him a look that I couldn't read, but evidently he could, because he told me it stood for "Big Bad Mean Fouse In Charge." It was several years before I realized what those letters really stood for, and that "Mean Fouse" was not even close.

Anyway, as I grew into adulthood, I emulated my father's Soldier-Talk type of language in some situations, and was less constrained by my mother's list of forbidden words.  But for me, the F-bomb was still taboo, still shocking, and certainly not for use in mixed company.  I still considered anyone who used it to be an ill-mannered cretin, and probably not someone I wanted to associate with.  When my own children were young, I tried to keep them  hearing that kind of language by monitoring the movies and shows they saw, the songs they heard, and the people they were exposed to.

What did you say?

These days, such concerns about the use of the F-word would probably make many people wonder if I had been born not just in the last millennium, but rather in an earlier geological age.  It is heard in movies, in song lyrics, on Facebook, in the workplace, on the street, indeed in almost any setting you can think of.  It is used by young and old, by male and female, and by people of all education levels and economic levels and ethnic groups.

It is no longer shocking, not even to me.  These days being shocked by that word would be like being shocked to hear that the wind is blowing in Oklahoma.  It happens everyday.  In fact, instead of being the scorched-earth F-bomb that defied decency and social norms, today that word is more like the F-Cherry Bomb.  People might notice, it makes a bit of a point, but certainly overuse has taken some of the bang out of the F-word.  And many people today don't mind using it whenever it pops into their head, no matter what situation they are in.

Although it is no longer shocking to me, I am still a little chagrined by it, and a little embarrassed for whoever said it.  Or wrote it.  It is still coarse, and people who use it habitually often seem to be unable to omit from any communication. When somebody says something like, "Like, WTF?   My f***ing boyfriend lost my f***ing car keys, and now I have to f***ing walk to the f***ing 7-Eleven to buy some f***ing Marlboros. Sometimes he is so f***ing stupid. Cute, but f***ing stupid," I want to shout, "Hey, do you kiss your mama with that mouth? Is that the only word you know? Maybe you should download that Word Dynamo app and discover new ones."

I don't do it, though.  I am smart enough to know that people aren't going to change what they do, or what they say just because I don't approve.  Besides, if I did confront them, they would probably just tell me to F-off.

And mostly, I guess I figure they have a right to talk that way if they want to. Often, however, their use of that particular word at least somewhat overshadows whatever they are trying to convey, and diminishes them in they eyes of some people, including this old dinosaur. I think my mother was right to teach us to use appropriate speech, speech that does not insult, injure, or offend those who are listening. Usually, dropping the F-bomb oversteps at least one of those boundaries despite our society's change in attitude about its use.


   

Profiles in Courage

Before he became President, John F. Kennedy served in the United States Senate.  He also wrote and published a biographical book called Profiles in Courage,  in which he describes "acts of bravery and integrity by eight United States Senators throughout the Senate's history. The book profiles senators who crossed party lines and/or defied the opinion of their constituents to do what they felt was right and suffered severe criticism and losses in popularity because of their actions." In other words, he told stories about people who displayed political courage.  Kennedy won the Pulitzer Prize for his book in 1955.  I'm sure this probably contributed favorably to his reputation and enhanced his political career, which culminated in his being elected President in 1960.

Political courage is something this country could use a lot more of these day. But somehow, I find it less impressive than the kind of personal courage some everyday people exhibit in the ways they face the challenges in their lives.  Some profound examples of that courage are members of my own family.

My grandmother, Jessie Keller Fouse, bore seven children who survived to adulthood. There were four daughters and three sons, one of whom was my father. She and my grandfather and their children did not have an easy life. For many years, my grandfather earned a humble living working as a sharecropper in east Texas. Despite the hardships that they faced, my grandmother could always find something to laugh about.  Along with a strong Christian faith, her recipe for chocolate pie, and a tendency toward big feet and big noses, my grandmother passed down another legacy, unfortunately a deadly one. That legacy is cancer.

Descended from the Ashkenazi Jews of Europe, my grandmother carried a genetic mutation known as the BRCA mutation, which is common among that ethnic group.  Women with this mutation "have risk of breast cancer that is about five times the normal risk, and a risk of ovarian cancer that is about ten to thirty times normal."  This grim statistic proved all too accurate for my grandmother and her daughters.  She died of cancer when she was in her early sixties.  All of her four daughters developed breast cancer, and three of them did not survive the disease.

Unfortunately, the incidence of cancer in my family did not end with my grandmother and her daughters.  One of my first cousins recently lost her battle with cancer, and there are others in the extended family who have also suffered from the disease.

My sister Robin has fought a long battle with cancer.  In 1995, when she was 38, married, and the mother of two young daughters, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She underwent a year of agressive cheom-therapy at that time.   The doctors used particularly strong medicine because she had developed the disease at such a young age.  She lost every hair on her body, including her eyebrows and eyelashes.  She also underwent several surgeries.  The result was that the treatments were succesful, and she began a long period of remission.

Then in 2010, she was diagnosed with a large abdominal tumor, and the chemo began again.  A few months later, after she passed out at home, she was diagnosed with two tumors in her brain.  She underwent brain surgery to remove one of the tumors and radiation to shrink the other. The treatments for her brain tumors were successful, and the doctor treating her for those tumors released her from treatment a few months ago, saying that she no longer had any sign of tumors in her brain.

She continues taking chemo-therapy for the abdominal cancer, and there has been improvement.  She will complete the latest round in a few months.  She is looking forward to the birth of her third grandchild very soon.  The baby is her first granddaughter, Adelaide Joy, just who Robin and her daughter Meghan were hoping for. She is looking forward to finishing the chemo and getting back to her plans to raise chickens and plant a vegetable garden.  Recently she has been working her in her flowerbeds, planting the annuals she loves so much.

Throughout her ordeal, my sister has experienced all the emotions you would expect. At times, when the effects of the chemo have been harsh, she has been depressed.  At other times, when those effects have lessened, she has been hopeful.  More than once when I have visited her, she has expressed concern about me, saying that she didn't want me too worry too much about her.  She once told me once that she would be fine because,  "God isn't finished with me yet."     

Throughout my sister's ordeal, our mother has been at her side.  She has accompanied her when she received her chemo-therapy, she has stayed with her at home to help her with everyday tasks, she has encouraged her and prayed for her.  After Robin's brain surgery, Mom spent several nights in Robin's hospital room, sleeping in a chair.  When I expressed concern for ability to do that, given her age and her own health concerns, she said, "I wouldn't be anywhere else."

A few weeks ago I spoke to my sister on the phone.  She had recently learned that her chemo would continue for awhile, and she was disappointed and discouraged.  However, she had found renewed courage, and she told me that she would do what she had to do.  "With Jesus' help, I can do this."  For both Robin and our mother, that faith has sustained them throughout this ordeal.

Facing your own mortality, or that of someone you love, is an excruciating experience.  When we are young, we imagine ourselves to be somehow immortal, or we believe that a lifetime is longer than we later realize it is.   As I have seen my sister deal with her disease and the potential implications of it, as I have seen my mother forget her own less severe issues to be be beside Robin in her fight, I have been amazed by their courage and their faith.  No one who faces such hardships does so without sometimes losing heart, and they have had their share of dark days.  I believe those dark days are part of an honest reaction to the hardships of life.  Sometimes life and its hardships seem too much to bear.  Sometimes we are overwhelmed with pain, grief, and wondering  "Why?"  These are part of being human, and God does is not surprised by such reactions.

However, people of courage and faith, people like my sister and my mother, don't get stuck in the dark days.  Somehow, they find a way to continue the fight, to face what they fear, to affirm that God loves them and that he is with them, even when things seem darkest.  To me, their stories are the truest profiles in courage.

Your True Colors

Cyndi Lauper has always been one of my favorite musical artists.  She co-wrote and performed some beautiful music, including Time After Time, which includes a lot of metaphorical lyrics that I find interesting.

One of the things I like best about her, along with her music, is that she always made a point of letting her Freak Flag fly; in fact, the name of her 1983 debut album was She's So Unusual.  She definitely lived up to that description in her dress, hair styles, the way she danced, just everything about her.   I used to think it was probably mostly a gimmick designed to set her apart from the hundreds other would-be pop stars of the 1980s. I don't believe that any more.

The reason for my change in attitude about Cyndi's odd-ball persona, is because I have really listened to and thought about another of her songs, True Colors.  In this song, Cyndi is talking to someone she loves who is feeling sad.  She attributes her friend's feelings to a "world full of people" that make him lose sight of himself, causing the darkness inside of him to grow and make him feel small.   The chorus of the song is the advice she offers him:

"But I see your true colors

Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors are beautiful,
Like a rainbow"

She tells him that she can see the real him underneath the darkness, and his "true colors" are the reason she loves him.  Think about that.  She knows who he really is  -- not the person he might think he should be, or the person the world expects him to be, but the real him.  And she tells him not to be afraid to be who he really is, that that person is beautiful.  In the video linked above, she is living out the advice she gives in the ultra-strange ways she dresses,  the way she moves, and the way she wears her hair.  Parts of the video include settings that look like they might be out of a Dr Seuss picture-book.   It's as if she's saying to everyone, "Look at me.  I'm unusual, but I'm OK with it.  If I can look and act the way I do, what's to stop you from being who you really are?"

There are a lot of reasons that this advice might be hard for people to follow.  The "world full of people" that Cyndi's song refers puts all kinds of expectations on each of us.  As children, we are taught how we "should" be according to our gender, our socio-economic status, our race, ethnic background,  and a thousand other things.  Parents, schools, and churches impress on us their desires and expectations for who we should be and how we should act.  Advertisers make sure we are fully aware of the ways we fall short in appearance and physique.  It is easy to be inclined to try to hide, or even to deny our "true colors,"  the people we really are.  Letting those true colors show can be frightening and make us feel vulnerable.

Recently I have been reading Being Jesus in Nashville, the controversial new book by author Jim Palmer, who also wrote Divine Nobodies and Wide Open Spaces.  In his new book, Jim continues his journey of shedding religion to find Jesus,  He challenges himself to live a year exploring what it means "be Jesus" in his hometown of Nashville.  In other words, Jim seeks to interact with the people he encounters the way Jesus would have.  Pretty radical stuff.

One of the chapters of this book is titled "Being Jesus Means...Seeing People As They Truly Are."  In this chapter, he tells of his developing friendship with a homeless woman named Pattie he meets outside Panera Bread.  Their friendship grows, and eventually Pattie tells him, "Jim, I don't know if you will understand this, but when we are together I don't feel like a 'homeless person.'  I just feel like Pattie -- and that makes all the difference."

Jim relates his experience with Pattie to Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.  Jesus interacts with the woman just as the individual she is, not as a Samaritan, or a woman, or a sinner. He sees all those things about her, her true colors, but he doesn't hold back from their encounter.  He offers her "living water."  He sees her as she is, and he loves her anyway.  I believe that, as Cyndi Lauper says to her friend in her song, Jesus loves the woman at the well because she is the the exact individual that she is.  He didn't ask her to clean up her act first; he didn't weigh her down with heavy obligations.  He told her that  "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth."

"In truth."  I believe that means we must seek the truth about God, but it also means we must seek and embrace the truth about ourselves.  He already knows who we are, and he us loves anyway.  He loves us because of who we are.  If we can be real with God, if Jesus really knows us, then why should we be afraid to be who we are?  Why shouldn't we let our true colors come shining through?

"One of the greatest moments in anybody's developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is."  —Norman Vincent Peale

Patsy, Trisha, and the Power of Music

Early one morning as I was driving downtown, I was listening to a classic country radio station.  I heard an old song that I remember from my childhood, Patsy Cline’s “She’s Got You.”  According to Wikipedia, Patsy recorded it in 1961, the year I turned 5.  I have a very vivid memory of being at our little house on 38^th Place in Lawton, playing with my sister in our parents’ bedroom, for some reason.  The radio was on, and Patsy came on  singing the saddest song I had ever heard.  Even then I knew that she sang like an angel.   I listened attentively to the story she told, a story of lost love and regret, and I remember that it evoked images that I could relate to, such as a class ring and records, like my mother had, and other things I was too young to understand.  

At the time, my Dad was stationed in Korea, so I understood something about the feelings of loss the song expresses.  Every time I hear “She’s Got You,” I go back to that little house and remember vividly what it was like to be a 5-year-old boy and all the feelings I felt the first time I heard it.   ­­­­­­

I have a playlist on my iPod titled "Patsy and Trisha."  The Trisha is Trisha Yearwood, in case you aren’t familiar with her.  These two are connected in my mind for several reasons.   They are both altos, and both have the ability to sing a song in a way that really moves me.  Trisha has a song called “Xs and Os” that includes the line, “Well she's got her God, and she's got good wine, Aretha Franklin, and Patsy Cline.”  So, Trisha and I share a love for Patsy’s songs.

Also, I once met Trisha Yearwood.  Well, kind of.  Back about 1998, I took my daughter and a friend of hers to the Independence Day concert at Ft. Sill, which was outdoors on the Polo Field.  The concert  was all country that year, and there was some young cowboy the girls wanted to see, I don’t even remember who.  The headliner was Willie Nelson, but there were several other artists, and there was Trisha, who was the reason I wanted to see that concert.   I remember that when she took the stage, I pushed my way closer to the front so I could see her better.  She was singing something angelic and I was mesmerized.   As I stood there smiling, a little taller than most in the crowd, wearing my OU Sooners ball cap, Trisha looked directly at me.  I mean, we made eye contact.   She recognized me as an individual in the crowd.  There was a momentary connection between us.  For a few seconds, she was singing to me. It was not my imagination, really.  It happened. 

So, now when I hear Trisha, I remember that concert, the sounds of that day, the heat, and how cool it was to “meet” Trisha.  As when I hear Patsy Cline, Trisha’s singing takes me back to a specific place and time in my life.  

It is my experience that some songs have that power-- the ability to transport us, to remind of the way we once felt, and how it was to be that younger version of ourselves.  I bet you have your own examples, just as I do.

Along with Patsy's and Trisha's songs, there are many others that transport me back.  When I hear Gladys Knight sing "You're the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me," I think back to when Dana and I were first dating.  It was the first of many songs that we now consider to be Our Songs.  And when I hear Edwin Starr's War, I am once again a junior-high kid, having a great time roller-skating as fast as I can at the Doe Doe Park rink.  

I think Trisha could relate to all these musings because she has another song called “The Song Remembers When.”  It is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard.  If you have never heard that song, or even if you have, take just a few minutes and experience it here.    This song is another one about lost love, about a song on the radio bringing back memories and feelings long buried:

"After taking every detour
Getting lost and losing track
So that even if I wanted
I could not find my way back
After driving out the memory
Of the way things might have been

After I'd forgotten all about us
The song remembers when."

Those lyrics express beautifully one of my favorite aspects of music.  If you listen to Oldies Radio, like I do, assuming that you are old enough to remember when those old songs were new, you know what I am talking about.  Who needs a time machine?  The songs remember when.

  

(**)It Happens.....

 This afternoon, I started down the street for a walk, going east on our street on my regular route.  I thought I'd take advantage of the beautiful weather and maybe work off a little of that big lunch I had eaten earlier.  It was 75 degrees here today and cloudy, so it was perfect for such an excursion.   I was walking along past a house I've passed a thousand times when I noticed something I hadn't seen before.

There was a sign on the house's fence.  It said, "IF YOUR DOG POOPS PLEASE SCOOP."

Well, I laughed out loud.  For one thing, it was so totally unexpected.  When I first spotted the sign, I couldn't tell what it said, so I figured it was probably "BEWARE OF DOG"  or something like that.  But, no, this message was completely different.  I appreciated the little hint of humor, sort of a limerick with a message, since it kind of rhymes.  Also, ever the grammarian, I was glad to see there weren't any superfluous apostrophes, as in "IF YOUR DOG POOP'S PLEASE SCOOP."  That would have ruined it for me.  (Personally, I would have added a comma after "POOPS"  but I recognize that a comma is optional in this case and may have incurred an extra expense with the sign-maker. )

But more than that, the message on the sign immediately struck me as a metaphor for lots of interactions between people.   We often use "poop," or something more graphic (think Bovine Scatology), to represent negative stuff in our lives.   If you remember in the movie Forrest Gump, when Forrest was on his long run, some reporter asked him what he thought about something negative that had happened to him.  Forrest replied in his own distinctive intonation, "It happens."

It happens.  Poop happens. Sometimes there is dog poop in your yard.  Sometimes for real, and sometimes only metaphorically.

Sometimes the dog poop (either real or metaphorical) in your yard is just there, and there is no one you can blame for it.  As Forrest said, it just happens.  This might be because a band of wild dingoes (either real or metaphorical) invaded your neighborhood and chose your yard as a substitute for a Porta-Potty.  Or maybe there was a bad storm and a tree fell on your house.  Who you gonna blame, the tree?

Other times, there is someone to blame. Those you can blame come in two types.  (I have thought a lot about this, so you can trust me on it.)

One of the reasons that sign on the fence made me laugh is because it reminded me of (literal) dog-poop issues I experience at our previous house, which had a large corner lot with lots of space for neighborhood dogs to leave little presents for me to clean up.  Lots of little presents.  Some not so little.  So when I saw that sign, I immediately commiserated with the owner of that house.  I also wished that I had handled those issues more like he did, with a gentle reminder and a little humor.  More often I just fumed and raged.

As I said, our previous home had a large lot.  There was a long stretch of it that ran perpendicular to the front of the house and included one side of the privacy fence that surrounded our backyard.  From part of this stretch you could not even see the front of the house, and I could not see people allowing their dogs to fertilize it for me.   I knew they did, though, because I spent lots of time cleaning that stuff up.

One day, as I was driving home, I caught one of them in the act.  A lady I did not know, but whom I had seen around the neighborhood walking her little Yorkie (or some such critter), was standing and watching her doggie do his business on that stretch of my yard.   I slowed down, rolled down my car window, and as calmly as I could, said, "That is my yard.  You are using my yard as a dog-run.  I'm going to have to clean that up."

Well, this lady was immediately mortified.  She looked at my house, where I had pointed, and I could see that she had never even thought that this piece of ground that her dog was defiling belonged to somebody.  She sputtered sincere apologies.  She promised that she would send her husband down to "clean up this mess," and that it would never happen again.

I was really glad that I had not been rude to that lady.   She was a nice lady.  She was one of the first type of people who bring poop into your yard, or into your life.  These people do not mean to harm, they don't realize they are hurting anybody.   They are in their own little world and they just don't think about how what their actions affect you.  If I had had a "POOP, PLEASE SCOOP" sign like my current neighbor down the street, this lady would have  adhered to it.  As a matter of fact, her husband did come and clean up after the Yorkie (I guess he was in charge of such things in their household), and she went so far as to leave a note in our mailbox apologizing in writing.   I always waved to her when I saw her after that.

Another battle in the Poop Wars I fought at that house involved a representative of the other type of people who bring crap into your life.   There was another dog-walking woman in our neighborhood, whom I had observed more than once allowing her monster-dog to drop big steaming piles in other people's yards. In their front yards.  This woman could not claim ignorance like the lady with the Yorkie. Oh, no.  She was brazen.  She marched her dog around the neighborhood, letting crap drop where it would and never stooping to scoop.  She, like others of her type, know what they are doing to you and they just don't care.

I am a little ashamed (and a little proud) to describe what I did the day I found one of her brute's mounds in my front yard by the mailbox.  I got in my car and drove around the neighborhood until I found her and her beast, and I confronted her.  I told her I knew what she and her dog had done, and that the next time it happened I would shovel that stuff up and deposit it on her front porch.  She tried to deny the dirty deed, but I told her that I had examined just such a pile I had seen her dog deposit in my next-door neighbor's yard, and I knew that brand of doggie-doo when I saw it.  She never admitted anything, or apologized, but I didn't receive any more of those packages from Brutus.  (She also didn't know that I had no clue where she lived.)

So, anyway, that sign I saw this afternoon on my neighbor's fence reminded me of the Poop Wars, and it reminded me that sometimes people mess you over without meaning to.  I think it is best to give them the benefit of the doubt whenever you can.  Sometimes that idiot that pulls out in front of you in traffic just didn't see you, or is preoccupied with something.   I believe that most people are like the lady with the Yorkie, rather than that other woman.  And although I accomplished what I set out to when I confronted the crap-on-your-neighbor woman, I paid an emotional price by getting a bit overwrought.  It is better, whenever possible, to just remember that "it happens" and try to keep smiling.

A Fouse by Any Other Name....

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