Iterations of inconsequential thought

“Almanzo swore.”

August 11, 2010 at 5:28 pm (Uncategorized)

When I was 6 or so, my mother had a lovely tradition of reading to my sister and me before we walked to school. My sister, being literate (unlike me), would follow along as my mother read, a chapter at a time. Many, many days, weeks even, were devoted to the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I vividly remember one morning’s reading of a chapter wherein Laura’s dog died, and my mother then bustling me off to school, tears and all, me mourning the death of some hound that had died over a hundred years ago: sob sob, trudge trudge.

What I remember more distinctly, however, is not even a memory of my own, but one of my sister’s, that has been told and retold so often now that it is part of the family lore. My mother was reading along, at some point in the story where Laura had already met Almanzo (Manly!), and poor Almanzo was suffering from some minor irritation. Oh, that man must have been driven to something awful in that chapter, because, as my mother read: “Almanzo swore.” The horror! Swearing! What I had not realized (because I could not READ) was that my mother had bowdlerized Ms. Wilder’s work. Almanzo had said something more! My sister, two years’ beyond me in reading, had noted the offending word as my mother skipped over it. And what could this horrible word be, a word unfit for six or even eight year-old ears?

“Almanzo swore: ‘Darn!’”.*

Oh my dear, I do believe I have the vapors! “Darn!”

We tease mother about this still (OB-viously), but it really is in keeping with her character – she never swears (she never even gossips!). Her sensibilities have certainly influenced her children (well, some more than others), and I do keep in mind this sort of wholesome way of interacting with the world, even 26 years later. But my mother, you ask, has she changed with the times?

Not so much, and it is one of the many things I love about her. Below is a card I received from her the other day, commiserating with me for the really disastrously horrible week I had last week:

“Well, shucks!” I love my mother so.

*I’ve only just now realized that our own memories of this event are themselves inaccurate. In Googling to get the punctuation right, I came across the actual text: “Almanzo swore: ‘Gol ding it!’”. So. Not “darn”. Oh, well – no sense changing my whole story for a “ding” rather than a “darn”.