My mother tells stories about my dad. He died 44 years ago, but I have learned much about his fatherly ways by these stories. It is interesting to me how a father’s wisdom can be forwarded.

“Your father never swore. He just didn’t believe it in. I heard him say more than once, after I said ‘shit,’ that I ‘had something in my mouth that he didn’t want on the bottom of his shoe.’

There was the one night that I remember him cussing. We were driving from Baltimore, Maryland to South Carolina to visit with family. This would have been before your sister was born (before 1952), and it was dark and rainy. It was a messy, slow rain that just wet everything and kept the windshield dirty. We had stopped and William Earl had done his best to wash and clean of the windshield. As we started back onto the road, a truck came by, hit a mud puddle and splashed muddy goo on the windshield. Your father said, ‘damn it.’ I knew better than to say anything because he was m-a-d. That is the only time he ever cussed that I know of.”

My father use to say, “Profanity is a sign of a person with a limited vocabulary.” I suspect he was right.