At times I don’t remember the names of my co-workers, but 40 years later I still remember Paul De Rosa. You see, in second grade Paul De Rosa taught me the F-word.
Everyone has a Paul De Rosa in their childhood. A chubby mouth-breather with a perpetual runny nose, everyone called him “Paulderosa,” as though it were one word. When Paulderosa whispered the word to me with assurances that it was verbiage most foul, I did not believe him, so I went home and asked my mother. She asked me what the word was and I repeated it with relish. Twice.
My mother looked at me for a long moment, told me to never say that word again and immediately went to the phone and called Mrs. Paulderosa. Mrs. Paulderosa already had a murky reputation in the neighborhood because she was divorced, an oddity in Coral Ridge in the 1960s, and because it was rumored that she and Paulderosa still bathed together, which indeed they did. I know this because one day Mrs. Paulderosa asked me to join them. As I murmured my refusal, Mrs. Paulderosa laughed. “What’s the big deal?” she said. Even at the age of 7 I felt strongly I should not share this story with my parents.
Now, I could hear my mother’s side of the conversation, which seemed fairly shrill. “Where does a second-grader learn that word?” she said. Then, just before she slammed down the phone: “What kind of mother are you?” After that I was not allowed to play with Paulderosa ever again. Eventually they moved away; I heard that he is now a family and children’s counselor.
By today’s standard, not knowing the F-word until second grade would probably classify me as a late-bloomer, if not actually Amish. I know that kids today are exposed to a lot more at an earlier age, but I was unaware of just how much more until I was reading the Facebook page of Sharon, the wife of my second cousin, and almost dropped my teeth.
“Little Jared dropped his first F-bomb today,” she wrote breezily. “I’m still LOL.” Little Jared, incidentally, will turn 3 in March.
Almost a dozen people indicated that they “liked” this entry, and several had comments: “How cute!” said one. “Fast learner,” said another. My thought was that “The turd doesn’t fall far from the bird,” but I kept it to myself.
From my subsequent reading I learned that Little Jared uses the F-word a lot these days, and every time he does his parents laugh and tell him what a clever, smart boy he is. Perhaps Sharon is proud that, at 3, her son is articulate and a fast learner and has good retention skills. Perhaps by the time he is 4 he will be able to use the F-word as both an adverb and an adjective. No doubt by age 5 he will be able to use it as an action verb. Perhaps in the pantheon of family memories, this moment will rank next to his first tooth and his first step and his parents will smile fondly at the reminiscence.
Children being children, I have no doubt that one day in pre-school Jared will spill his milk and let the F-word rip. Later, one of his little peers will go home and repeat the word while her parents listen, aghast. “Where does a 3-year old learn language like that?” his classmate’s parents will ask each other. “What kind of mother allows that?” and I am sure Sharon would say, ”What’s the big deal?”