CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- So now there's a regulation in West Virginia schools governing student speech and which allows any of the staff to judge and summarily punish foul language? Hmm.
Glenwood School sat on a hillcrest, halfway between Bluefield and Princeton. It was a two-story, slate-roofed red brick 1900-ish structure on a basement foundation laid of huge handcut sandstones. That basement housed the furnaces and coal that fed them, a storage area and small room with a few dinky power tools for last-period-of-the-day Boy's Shop Class. The room was too small for all 12 of the eighth grade boys at once, so while a few used it, the others played volleyball outside.
Directly over that tiny room was my home room, where the girls were taught something or other while we boys were engaged in manual edification. A return air register in the floor near the teacher's desk connected to the lower room. Right under it was the rudimentary pottery wheel at which eighth grade Danny was working one fine 1952 day. The only other present was our star baseball pitcher, 10 feet away, rolling a mudball.
While I was intently putting the finishing touches on an ashtray for my mother, who did not smoke, my head was suddenly jarred by that fist-sized mudball thrown overhand from across the room. It filled my ear and hair and hurt ferociously. My reflexive action, as the villain ran from the room guffawing, was to scream (his name) plus "you," then all those words abbreviated by G.D.S.O.B. They were the worst words I knew to call someone, learned from my father and much older brother, who, as good UMW members, always used them to preface the name of the mine superintendent at the Jenkinjones operation of Pocahontas Fuel Co. (now Consol) where they worked.
In the restroom, I had washed off as much sticky clay as I could, when the next-to-last bell rang, summoning everyone to final homeroom.
My homeroom teacher, about 35, recently married to a CPA and fellow Methodist, was the strictest in the school, with a glower that would kill roaches. She had recognized my distinctive voice (hordes have said, "You sound just like Dan Rather.") and was waiting for me at the door. All my classmates were seated, looking at her.
As my first foot crossed the threshold, she stepped dead square in front of me, flat-hand slapped my left cheek hard as she could, then backhanded the other. Both immediately turned red, as much from humiliation as pain -- I saw all my classmates laughing loud and long, that assailant among them.
Shoving her face into mine like a drill instructor, she shouted, "I have never heard such foul language in all my life. You will apologize to all these girls who heard your nasty mouth and beg their forgiveness."
Sheepishly and stutteringly, I did. Then the final bell rang. It ended there, except that my already low self-esteem was plunged to deeper depths, with it, more of my faith that God is just.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- So now there's a regulation in West Virginia schools governing student speech and which allows any of the staff to judge and summarily punish foul language? Hmm.
Glenwood School sat on a hillcrest, halfway between Bluefield and Princeton. It was a two-story, slate-roofed red brick 1900-ish structure on a basement foundation laid of huge handcut sandstones. That basement housed the furnaces and coal that fed them, a storage area and small room with a few dinky power tools for last-period-of-the-day Boy's Shop Class. The room was too small for all 12 of the eighth grade boys at once, so while a few used it, the others played volleyball outside.
Directly over that tiny room was my home room, where the girls were taught something or other while we boys were engaged in manual edification. A return air register in the floor near the teacher's desk connected to the lower room. Right under it was the rudimentary pottery wheel at which eighth grade Danny was working one fine 1952 day. The only other present was our star baseball pitcher, 10 feet away, rolling a mudball.
While I was intently putting the finishing touches on an ashtray for my mother, who did not smoke, my head was suddenly jarred by that fist-sized mudball thrown overhand from across the room. It filled my ear and hair and hurt ferociously. My reflexive action, as the villain ran from the room guffawing, was to scream (his name) plus "you," then all those words abbreviated by G.D.S.O.B. They were the worst words I knew to call someone, learned from my father and much older brother, who, as good UMW members, always used them to preface the name of the mine superintendent at the Jenkinjones operation of Pocahontas Fuel Co. (now Consol) where they worked.
In the restroom, I had washed off as much sticky clay as I could, when the next-to-last bell rang, summoning everyone to final homeroom.
My homeroom teacher, about 35, recently married to a CPA and fellow Methodist, was the strictest in the school, with a glower that would kill roaches. She had recognized my distinctive voice (hordes have said, "You sound just like Dan Rather.") and was waiting for me at the door. All my classmates were seated, looking at her.
As my first foot crossed the threshold, she stepped dead square in front of me, flat-hand slapped my left cheek hard as she could, then backhanded the other. Both immediately turned red, as much from humiliation as pain -- I saw all my classmates laughing loud and long, that assailant among them.
Shoving her face into mine like a drill instructor, she shouted, "I have never heard such foul language in all my life. You will apologize to all these girls who heard your nasty mouth and beg their forgiveness."
Sheepishly and stutteringly, I did. Then the final bell rang. It ended there, except that my already low self-esteem was plunged to deeper depths, with it, more of my faith that God is just.
I was never asked about the mud still on my clothing and in my dripping wet hair, nor what in the world would prompt me to utter such blackguardly epithets. I later told one plainspoken girl what had happened and she, aghast, declared, "That (G.D.S.O.B)!" So much for her tender sensibilities. She spread the word and a few girls expressed their sympathy.
There I was -- what today would be called a loner because our phoneless farm isolated me from peers. A nerd because I was artistic, won all spelling bees and raised my hand in class. There was a shotgun and bolt-action rifle in our home, with which I had killed game and predators. I did indeed fantasize revenge against that teacher and my attacker, but never acted on it. Later her husband's sister married into my family and she would always greet me warmly at family events. I never told her how much I still despised her for that summary injustice.
Four years in high school, then at the army's finishing school for profane, vulgar, crude and grossly objectionable language (which they call "Basic Training"), my vocabulary to express even the most unthinkably obscene was vastly expanded. Pity I had not known those words in 1952. If G.D.S.O.B. was "never heard" by that prim teacher, surely she would not recognize filth on such a vastly advanced plane?
Sixty years later I live half-a-block from a middle school. Our home has an upper floor terrace that looks down on the street and sidewalk. Passing students seldom look up. I hear boys and girls alike bandy words and phrases that, if G.D.S.O.B. got me a face-slapping back then, these crudities would have invoked a death sentence. Teacher friends and family tell me that, as with polite language expansion, brand new vulgar words and phrases are constantly bouncing off school hallways. Indeed, I hear them in movies and on TV, as do our kids.
I have always wondered what makes one word acceptable and another not? Some words are vulgar in one context but not so in different usage or even as a double entendre. Are they taboo in schools? If certain words in one context or another are banned, then there should be a list of them and which usages are permitted. Otherwise, like all vague laws, administered according to individual enforcer subjectivity, they become "an ass."
Certainly, constant foul language everywhere has removed the shock value of even the most vile utterances. Nixon and every president since has been captured on tape using the worst of them all.
If we are to wash mouths out with soap, should we start with the kids -- or higher up?
Cook is an author, artist and inventor who lives in Hurricane.
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