My early years, part 1
My first lesson in the power of words
Fortunately, I don’t remember potty training or other embarrassing events of early childhood. This despite the best efforts of my father to embarrass me at family gatherings, with tales of my babyhood excrescences.
I do remember my mother restricting my freedom at the age of 4. Though pretty, Mum was a powerful, Junoesque woman. She could walk on her hands, do cartwheels and other gymnastics. My grandfather told me,
‘When she was six, she would climb up to sit on the roof gable.’
If born into the current generation, she would have been an Olympic boxer or perhaps a Navy SEAL.
At five, I was annoyed with her about something. It must have seemed hugely important. I stood at the top of the stairs and shouted, “Bugger, Bugger, Bugger!” I had learned this commonly used English swearword from my evil playmates next door. In the more polite days past, it had excellent shock effect on adults.
Mum leapt up the stairs three at a time, whirled me into the air and thence to the bathroom. Seizing the rough loofah, used for back scrubbing, she wetted it. Covering it in soap, she forced it into my mouth. It was all suds, suffering and spluttering.
***
My wife just read this over my shoulder. She points out that her loofah is likely bigger than my mother’s. She seems keen on this idea.
Through these childhood experiences, I have learned the value of internalising one’s thoughts. Bugger! Bugger! Bugger!
***
When thwarted, I was given to boiling rages. My face went scarlet. Blood pounded in my neck. All rationality went out of the window. Speech became incoherent. I was an elemental force. Think Incredible Hulk junior, but red rather than green.
As swearing was too soapy, I took to stamping, screaming, and bellowing fit to burst. In my dotage, I am relearning these invaluable skills.
Somewhat forcefully, mum introduced me to the benefits of putting my head into a bucket of ice-cold water. As she was a bit rough, I learned to do this myself in the bathroom sink. It was wonderfully calming. It also reduced the risk of drowning or losing teeth in the metal bucket. Poor Mum.
One puzzles as to why all schools and maybe all organizations don’t have buckets of ice-water on hand? It could remove the need for courses in anger management and reduce the prison population.
My wife read the above with interest. I hear ice thumping into a large bucket as I write. Hope springs eternal. Perhaps a bottle of Krug is on its way?
***
Mum was highly intelligent and well read, despite having no chance of college. This was normal in the 1930’s when only the very rich were educated beyond 15. Like most of the working class, mum was expected to contribute to the family income.
The dubious benefit of having an intelligent mum was that I had quite an advanced vocabulary before I was ten. Adjectives she applied to me in the early days included bad, naughty, cheeky, and wicked. As I grew, she elevated my education. We moved on through annoying, difficult, and troublesome. By age eight we were onto obnoxious, repugnant, obstreperous, incorrigible, malevolent and recalcitrant. Ever since, I have strived to live up to mum’s expectations. Maybe I am an absolute rotter, but at least I’m an articulate one.
***
When registering my new car in Costa Rica in 2017, I tried several easy-to- remember numbers from that year’s list. All were already taken. So, I settled for my first Initial and HP. Nobody seemed to want that one. As I drove, various laughing locals pointed at my new car.
Apparently, HP is well known shorthand for Hijo de Puta, son of a whore. I quite like that. It keeps aggressive drivers away, as I roar dangerously along local roads, with darkened windows. They think I’m a drug dealer.
My long-suffering mother died years back. I like to imagine how she might seize such sniggering locals, one in each hand, whirling them aloft and washing their mouths out.
