I ran across an older post on “SuzzWords” blog recently that brought back a couple of memories growing up as a very naive kid back in the 1950’s. Her post was basically with regard to those “bad words” we would sometimes incur along with other things of a sexual nature back in those days.

Given the way society treats most things of that nature these days, those things of shame in the fifties rise to the level of ‘humor’ today. My two most vivid learning experiences which pushed me part way across that threshold of naiveness were with regard to “the finger” and “condoms”. Neither of which I had a clue about, even after having reached the ninth grade in 1955.

Let’s start with the infamous ‘finger’. From time to time I would see someone at school give the dreaded ‘finger’ to someone else. Sometimes following the jester would be laughter, sometimes the appearance of anger. This sent very confusing signals to me, someone who had not a clue as to what this apparent secret sign meant. I knew it must be bad because before someone gave ‘the finger’ to someone else, they would normally check to see if a figure of authority was any where around.

Then one day while in the boy’s restroom a good friend of mine and myself were approaching the urinals for a moment of relief. He had just given ‘the finger’ to one of our other friends in the hallway. My friend grinned and I immediately thought to myself that this is it, I had to know what this secret code was! As we were standing there relieving ourselves the ensuing conversation went something like this…..

Me: “Why do you keep doing that finger thing? You don’t even know what it means!”

Friend: “I do too!”

Me: “No you don’t!”

Friend: “I DO TOO!”

Me: “Okay…..prove it. What does it mean?”

Friend: “It means, F*** You!”

Me: “That’s right! I really didn’t think you knew.”

My friend looked a bit disturbed at my interrogation techniques so I immediately followed up with an apology that I had doubted his worldly knowledge. What was important is that I pulled the old “Tom Sawyer” on him and had gotten my own naiveness addressed.

As often happens in these situations however, I now had yet another problem. What does that ‘F’ word mean? I had heard it maybe a couple of times from some of the more shady characters at our school and I knew it was bad but up until then, never had a particular interest in its meaning. I eventually put two and two together however and finally figured it all out – sort of I think.

And here I am some fifty years older and I’m still not sure I understand why that gesture has been chosen as a universal sign of displeasure. Well, at least one embraced by us Americans. It always seemed more logical to me, given the circumstances in which one person flips another person off, that if someone is aggravated or upset with the another someone that a more appropriate meaning for ‘the finger’ would be something like “Go To Hell!”

Contrary to that, it seems to me that the “F*** you!” connotation applied to the sign seems to imply that when you get mad at someone and flip them off, you are hoping they have some sort of sexual encounter. And that could be a good thing, right? Oh well, that’s why someone else is writing all these rules and not me. You know, I wonder if Congress had something to do with this?

The other particular item which I had to deal with in those days was with regard to ‘condoms’ of which I was also clueless. The knowledge of the dreaded ‘condom’ was all revealed to me as I and another friend trudged along a path winding through a vacant lot in our neighborhood.

As we were walking along I happen to look down and saw this peculiar looking white object on the ground, somewhat resembling a deflated balloon. I immediately stopped and claimed my prize, then excitingly turning around and daggling my new found treasure in the face of my friend. He lets out this loud, “Ewwwwwww!” I stared back at him wondering why he had this half-crazy look on his face. He immediately tells me to throw it down but I’m too clever to fall for that old trick. Yea, throw it down and then he’ll get it!

Again he yells for me to throw it down with this really hideous look on his face. I ask him why and he exclaims, “It’s a rubber!” Now I haven’t a clue what he just said so I respond, “It’s a balloon!” Then he proceeds to tell me what it is and for what it is used. Then I let out a big, “Ewwwwwww!” and drop it like a hot potato. I finally closed out my education on that item by getting clarification on the term “rubber”. I had heard the term “prophylactic” before but not “rubber”. Either way, I still did not have a clue as to what they were until that incident.

In closing I must add that there are occasions on some nights when I still pray and give thanks that I wasn’t trudging along that path that day alone and then came upon that thing. I would have probably blown it up like a balloon and tied onto the back of my bicycle seat.