Sept/Oct 2022 (Volume 14, Issue 5)

 

By Arvid Huisman

 

In the home in which I was raised there were at least two things you didn’t want to get caught doing — (a) being a hibble and (b) cussing. 

 

Our mother did not like hibbles. Hibble (my spelling) is apparently a Low German word for which I have been unable to find an official definition. We Huisman kids understood a hibble to be someone who is whiny and finicky. Mom did not like whiny, finicky kids. 

 

If we complained about something on the supper table, for instance, Mom would say, “Don’t be a hibble. If you don’t like something on the table eat something else or go to bed hungry.” My physique bears witness to the fact that I never went to bed hungry. I was not a hibble.

 

Cussing was a more serious infraction. Our parents very seldom used strong language and even then it was quite mild. 

 

Our mother was one of 12 kids raised during the Great Depression in an immigrant home. With seven older brothers she had certainly been exposed to cussing. On occasion — when she was really upset — I heard this devout woman mutter the s-word… in German.

 

While no cussing was acceptable, use of the Lord’s name as a cuss word and the f-word were strictly off limits and were considered close to the Unpardonable Sin.

 

I am the oldest of six children — four boys and two girls, in that order. I left home when my sisters were quite small so I was not a witness to their use of profanity but we boys — the oldest three in particular — knew quite a few cuss words and we knew how to use them. 

 

(I’m not stupid; I’ll bet my sisters cussed, too.)

 

Shakespeare wrote that discretion is the better part of valor and we brothers practiced discretion; we avoided cussing when our parents were around. When Mom and Dad left us alone for an evening, however, the cuss words came out and were well exercised. 

 

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