From the first moment my wife discovered
she had breast cancer, there was a deafening silence from the men I know. Even
ones whose wives, mothers or girlfriends had breast cancer seemed to have
received a gag order from some Central Cancer Command and did little more than
mumble about the experience. Not one to shut up for any known reason, I started
this blog…
I have never
counted myself among the billions on Earth whom I consider “casual cussers”.
I work in a
large, semi-urban public high school and teenagers – primarily because they
believe that cursing/vulgarities/taking-God’s-name-in-vain all make them look
adult; which they believe because adults use the words and typically children
don’t (you don’t see a competition on TV for little kids cussing, do you?).
My definition of
“casual cussers” are those who use “the ‘f’ word every other word”, like Eddie Murphy does in "Beverly Hills Cop". Like lots
of my teenagers do. (Not all of them! I’m not saying that.) What I am saying is
that we live in a culture where most cuss words have lost their shock value and
consistently and without pause, hang in the air of most of the places we live,
work, and go to school.
I grew up with “casual
cussers” so, because I was a rebellious teen who wasn’t particularly brave, I
made it my mission in life to NOT be a “casual cusser”.
Of course, I
know the words! I can even say them. But I use them in public ONLY on extremely
rare occasions. Even privately, it takes a lot of pain or grief or anger to
make me cuss. I use “casual cussing” in my writing because that’s the way people
talk and if I had the teen characters of my new novel start off saying, “Hey,
smart butt!” I would have lost credibility, realism (and probably the sale),
all in one fell swoop.
All right, now
for my point: after we found out that my wife’s best friend of 42 years
discovered that she has breast cancer, I am considering buying this shirt and
wearing it to the upcoming RELAY FOR LIFE I will be walking in this spring:
There are other, less offensive shirts that get the exact same message
across, but why bother? I think that wearing this would express my clear and
present feelings – and I should add, that my feelings are most definitely NOT casual.
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