The first time I remember
purposefully making a statement solely to gauge the reaction was in 1979 or so. My family and I were traversing the Louisiana
highways somewhere in the vicinity of Ferriday, home of those musical cousins
Mickey Gilley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart. We may or may not have been lost. As my mother’s brain was the precursor to
Siri, I feel fairly certain she knew exactly where we were. I however, did not and felt the timing was
right to use a new phrase I had recently learned. “God’s Green Earth”. I don’t remember from whom I heard it or the
context of why it was uttered, but I had a need to use it, y’all.
Testing the
waters, I cried out in a plaintive voice, “Where on God’s Green Earth are we?” Rest assured my mother was less than
impressed with my question. My sister
looked at me with a mixture of condescension and pity. Truthfully, she looked at most everyone in
this manner, so her reaction was not a part of the equation. My mother’s reaction was one with which I was
familiar. And it wasn’t good. I swear I thought ‘taking the Lord’s name in
vain’ was something altogether different.
The look she gave
triggered a memory which caused me to involuntarily shudder. As a child I wasn’t particularly
ill-behaved. I do, however, remember
making several serious errors in judgment.
The one that always pops to mind was when I was a lad in 1977 and
was enjoying the summer twixt first and second grade.
My sister and I have shared a reliable relationship since childhood. I loved her always; she did not particularly
care for me until she became a mother.
We were living in
the last of our three houses (Front Street) our gypsy family rented in
Winnfield, Louisiana. I remember being psychologically injured in a grievous way; she may have insulted my Lego house or merely told me I was stupid. My typical response
was to tell my Mother. For some
unknown reason I took leave of my senses and decided to handle this situation
myself. Having no physical advantage, I used
the only tool in my arsenal, my vocabulary.
I felt I was superior to her in this respect, as I was a member of the
Gifted and Talented class, people. It’s
true.
Her reaction to my
response immediately offered proof I had chosen poorly. I won’t repeat what I said but it stopped my
sister dead in her tracks. She
immediately recovered, smiled maliciously and said, “oooh, you’re
gonna get it!” Unfortunately the voice
that allowed me to lead cheers in college without a megaphone caused the words to
reverberate down the hall to the kitchen where my mother was cooking and
singing. She stopped suddenly and asked in a tone signifying doom, “Dustin Terryll Thompson, what did you
just say?” My first response was “My
name is Dustin?”
You see I had
never seen my name written down and had been called Dusty for all seven of my
years on the planet. I never knew my actual
name was Dustin. I relished the
new-found knowledge. Additional
knowledge gained that day was what Lava Soap (with pumice) tastes like as
Mother decided on a creative punishment for a creative turn of phrase.
Lava Soap was what
my father used to get the hard to remove grease and dirt off his hands after
work. Never have my teeth felt so shiny
and gritty and free from all verbiage which is considered vulgar and
unacceptable by one Catherine Waynette Thornton Thompson. I guess it made sense. The colorful phrase was one The Dad had used on a number of occasions. Needless to say the words I uttered never
crossed my lips again, even when stuck in traffic in DC or Los Angeles. Synonyms for some of those words, maybe, but definitely
not those particular words.
And that’s all I’m
saying for now.
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