A cuss-free week?

I'm intrigued by a report from Los Angeles.

Pay no attention to that eerie silence in the nation's most populous county this week; it will simply be the sound of 10 million people not cussing.

At least that's the result McKay Hatch is hoping for once his campaign to clear the air is recognized by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

On Tuesday, the board is scheduled to issue a proclamation by Supervisor Michael Antonovich making the first week in March No Cussing Week.

That would mean no blue language from the Mojave desert, where it gets hot as $&# in the summer, to the Pacific Ocean, where on a winter's day it can get colder and nastier than %$#!

. . .

Hatch has lofty goals.

"Next year I want to try to get California to have a cuss-free week. And then, who knows, maybe worldwide," said the 10th grader, who believes if people treat each other with more civility they can better work together to solve bigger problems.

He said his campaign began to form about the time he hit seventh grade when he noticed his friends beginning to swear, something his family didn't allow.

He formed the No Cussing Club and invited others to join. Soon the group had a Web site, bright orange T-shirts, a hip hop theme song and inquiries from all over from people interested in joining. He estimates 20,000 people have formed similar clubs.

"It's not about forcing anyone to stop, just to bring awareness," he says of the movement. "If you can do a week without cussing, maybe you can do two weeks. And then maybe a month."

There's more at the link.

I sincerely wish young Mr. Hatch and his No Cussing Club well. I'm afraid most people won't make the effort: but I wish they would! We curse too freely, too often - and I'm guilty of it too. As George Washington said: "The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low that every person of sense and character detests and despises it."

The corollary, of course, is that when we swear, we show ourselves to lack sense and character. Yep - me too! However, there are times when I'll plead great provocation, and let fly with a few words that'll strip paint off the wall - and feel better for it!

I'm irresistibly reminded of something that happened when I was only about three years old. My father was painting an old bookcase in the back yard of our house, and my mother and I were out there doing our thing. Unfortunately, a gust of wind blew the bookcase over - and the edge of its top shelf landed right on my dad's big toe, breaking it. I can remember Dad dancing around, holding his foot, saying words very loudly and very rapidly (that I didn't understand), the air turning deep blue around him: and my Mom's hands coming down like traps over my ears, so that I shouldn't hear him! In later years, I reminded them of that incident. They were surprised that I remembered it, but both laughed. Dad, grinning, confessed that he'd been remembering - and using! - all the naughty words he'd learned during World War II in the Royal Air Force, and adding to them a rich embellishment drawn from his imagination on the spur of the moment!

I daresay Mr. Hatch will excuse that sort of swearing, though . . .



Peter