It has been brought to my attention  that at times my language tends to become a little salty.
I studied  my speech and writing patterns  and decided  that I could indeed use improvement in my communications with polite society. Could I bring it up to a socially acceptable level?

After a couple of weeks of diligent practice I began to see a marked improvement, making progress at amazing rate. For instance, when my dog ate my best pair of biker boots, I refrained hollerin’ and cussin like I would normally have done.

No. I just said, “Bad dog, that wasn’t a nice thing to do,” and I whacked him  about the head and shoulders a few times with a broken pickaxe handle that I just happened to have handy. I was proud to have solved the problem in a more sociable manner without using any unsocial words.

After all, the hollerin’ was done by him, the dog. Neither one of us had to use any sort of profanity of any sort. Although I expect he  likely would have used a few choice words of his own if he had possessed the power of speech.

A few days later I was on a deer stand at dawn in 20-degree weather with the wind gusting out of the east at 15 miles per hour when a 14-point Boone and Crockett buck stepped out at point blank range and the brand new 12-gauge shotgun I had borrowed from a friend malfunctioned and misfired with a noisy click.

After ol’ Rockin’ Chair bounded merrily away into the sunrise, I unloaded my gun (which was probably a pointless gesture since it wouldn’t shoot anyhow) and didn’t say a mumblin’ word while I walked home with an empty sack .

When a normally docile and tractable saddle mare suddenly developed a hormonal imbalance and ran us both through a barbed wire fence, I just called out the vet and let him sew both of us up.

Children, I’ll tell ya’ll, I was settin’ the woods on fire with this here language reform policy. I stumped toes, barked shinbones, hid from a busload of Watch Tower  folks (instead of meeting them at the door and cussin’ em’ off the property like I’ve always done in the past).

Then I sat up past daylight writing this column the first time and editing the numerous typos and basically learning to figure out all the bells and whistles required to somehow to use this newly donated word processor, and  the  DAMNED  INFERNAL CONTRAPTION ate it like it was a watermelon on the Fourth of July.

“You spawn of chaos, associatin’ with you, is worse than being married to the Devil’s stepmother,” I said. Among other chosen words.

And since the next page of this article is almost totally unprintable I’m not going to bother to type it up because Hustler Magazine, in all likelihood, wouldn’t publish it either .

I think I ain’t cut out to be bilingual .

Back the old pencil and paper,
Ricky Harpole
(Contact Harpole at www.facebook.com/harpolive or www.colespointrecords.com)