Mamma wasn’t always careful about what she said around us kids. She could curse with the best of drunken sailors when she was angry and she knew a dozen different names for angels when doing so. We were not allowed to curse, so we grew up thinking that was for adults only. So as kids, we didn’t have potty mouths,but as adults we could curse with the best of them.
Mamma also talked quite openly about things that went on in the neighbourhood. Now one of the big shameful things in those days was to have a child when you weren’t married and the term used was illegitimate.
One of my sisters was born with Turners Syndrome,which was not a diagnosis when she was born. The doctors told my mother she was “retarded” and my mother accepted that.So often in conversations with other people, the words illegitimate and retarded were tossed about.
One day Dooker and her friend Laney came home from school and said “Mamma , Judy’s illegitimate isn’t she? Quite huffily, Mamma said “Indeed she isn’t! Why?” Laney piped up and said, ” We were talking in school today about special people and Dooker told the nun that Judy was illegitimate.”
Mamma turned white and blared”She’s retarded, not illegitimate!” Mamma didn’t go to a home and school meeting for the rest of the year!
We had a priest for a short time named Father O’Brien. He was tall and dark and he wore a big wide brimmed hat, something like a gunslinger’s hat. One day father O’Brien came to the house and my little brother ,who was about four ,was in the kitchen. He looked at the tall man and turned to Mamma and said,”You’re right Mamma ,he does look like Wyatt Earp!” If the floor had opened up and swallowed her , Mamma would have considered it a blessing! The priest just laughed.
“Kids will hang you everytime!”
