Middle kid-dom and learning how to cuss...

This entry is an excerpt, edited, from  a book I wrote titled "The Train Ride". Remember, every kid has had a bad influence in his life, some were the bad influence. I guess it's where leaders and followers get sorted out.

FROM “THE TRAIN RIDE” by JIM HALL

The middle kid.

These three words say volumes to those of us with the title. We are the adventurous ones. We are the ones who invented the term “Hey man watch this”, the famous last words of hundreds of thousands of deceased redneck fools, brave men and women (all middle kids I guessed) who insisted on jumping off high places and landing on and in who knows what after drinking way too much liquid adult bravery enhancer. We were the drivers of automobiles at seven years old. Not to say we are all drunken stupid nare-do-wells or future parolees from the prison system. No, we were Presidents of the United States of America like Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, well known comedians like Carson, Leno and Conan O’Brien, peace keepers like Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Dali-Lama, rich dudes like Trump and Warren Buffet and actors like Bob Hope and Richard Burton. We were also young men on the way to being fraternity men, college graduates, adventurers and much more than any old first or third kid could ever be. Being the middle kid meant that if my older brother failed (at anything) it would be easy to blame it on the middle kid…me. If my younger sister skinned her knee and I was in another state, it could somehow be tracked back to the middle kid…me.

Us “middle-un’s” were the comedic, peace keeping, presidential, future rich guy thespians of this world, and we couldn't do anything right. My little sister was practically teflon coated when it came to getting into trouble, and my brother was a professional ass-kissing suck-up  extraordinaire...and I hated it. It was like a strange curse had befallen me for some cosmic reason, beyond my control. I mean "Twilight Zone" quality stuff here. Not cheap, second hand, "Outer Limits" reruns with flimsy props and second hand actors either.

Dammit.

I was an amateur cusser back then utilizing the “biblical cuss words” like Damn, Hell and Ass. These were the basics my Dad used and every time he did, my Mom would scream “George!!” as a weak but necessary form of moral protest. My Mom, on the other hand, could make a drunken sailor blush especially when she drove a car. I realized that everyone going slower than her was a dumb-ass and every one going faster than her was stupid shit-head. I figured all the folks going faster and slower than her must have been middle kids too…like me. I’m certain my Mother must have at least thought of me in those terms, stupid shit-head and dumb-ass I mean, she was human and I was after all the middle kid and her personal pain in the ass, at least according to her. I must give credit where it is due, however, she did help get me started as far as introducing the secret language known as cussing went.

As my knowledge of the English language grew beyond the biblical “Damn-Hell-Ass” realm I expanded my repertoire by using combinations. Damn-it and damn-you were simple. Hell was expanded by Hell-no and Hell-yes. Adding “Oh” to the front of the afore mentioned combinations helped to express attitudes concerning any situation. “Oh Hell No!” was a definite keeper as much as “Oh Hell Yes” was. Ass, on the other hand was the biggie. Dumb-ass, smart-ass, lard-ass, fat-ass, ass-hole, ass-hat, ass-face, ass-gripper, you name it and we connected the word ‘ass’ to it. The ubiquitous and timely addition of the word ‘shit’, gifted to us by Cuss Master Dickie McGrew (my best friend in the second grade), was the proverbial clincher and opened up a whole new world of cussing to all of the seven year olds I hung out with. Shit-head, shit-ass, shit-stick, shit-lips, shit-licker, shit-sniffer, shit-face and let’s not forget the reversals like dip-shit, stupid-shit and dumb-shit-(a slight breech of etiquette but acceptable just the same as they both described a lack of intelligence on some level). Dickie McGrew brought the word ‘shit’ to us and it was considered a gift among us non unionized, second grade, amateur cussers.

It would be our first introductions to non biblical swear words with many more to follow as the young cuss master, Dickie, found us worthy. Dickie could have entered the cussing Olympics and won Gold, nurtured by years of tutelage under the instruction of his father, the Bela Karolyi of cussing, at his side. Summer and Winter Gold medals, I am sure, hung proudly over the fireplace in the family room at the McGrew compound surrounded by black and white photos of the elder McGrew coaching Dickie on Gold medal winning combinations. The only thing missing for Dickie was his picture on the front of a Wheaties Box of Cereal, his numerous medals hanging around his neck, his best shit-eating grin proudly on display.

My friend Dickie McGrew could have given seminars on cussing and surely made millions drawing thousands of kids from the metro Atlanta area. He was indeed the master and we were his students.