The summer before I turned eleven years old I became caught up in an evil practice. What was this vile thing?
Bad language had always been taboo at my house. As a young boy I lived in fear of the bar of soap that would be used to wash my mouth out if I called my sisters, “Stupid” or said “Shut Up.” I only remember having it done once, but that was enough to make me use good language. As I went to school, though, I learned the usual crude words that weren’t exactly swear words, but the kind you wouldn’t use when talking to your mother.
My swearing started out innocently enough. Substitute words like “Darn”, “Gosh”, and “Heck” were part of the trouble. I even got so daring as to say, “Go to H-E-Double Toothpick!”
But one day, I started on the actual words. The “hells” and “damns” and a few, but not all, of the others.
It was in my back yard. I was with one of my friends and we suddenly thought it would be fashionable to start yelling at each other with all the swear words we dared to use. (There were some words we didn’t dare use. The Bible even warns about using some. We didn’t even come close to those.)
My mom always seemed to poke her head out the back door when something was going on in the back yard that was wrong. I waited for her to come out, but she never did. She must have been out of hearing distance. That was good for her, but not good for me. My friend and I got on our bikes and rode up and down the streets of our neighborhood, swearing back and forth with our new-found freedom.
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