In the small, rural elementary school I attended in PA, in 4th grade someone scratched “that word” on the bathroom wall. This would have been about 1964. You’d have thought someone got murdered. There was very little talking after the word got out and what there was was in hushed tones. A demon had descended upon the school and everybody was unsettled. At that time I had never heard of that word, never heard it spoken nor seen it written, this was brand new stuff for me.

There were only 2 bathrooms in the school, one for boys and one for girls and “that word” was in the boys. So they shut it down until the janitor could fix it and funneled everybody into the girls bathroom. That meant the assistant principle had to hang around in the hallway by the bathroom to monitor who came and went. Couldn’t have a boy go walking in on a girl now could we?

I was 9 in 1964 and 2 years later I was living in Fort Myers, FL and my friends and I would walk to the Edison mall and hang out. I was 11 and would go in the bathroom at the Woolworth’s in the mall and there were hundreds of “that word” scratched all over the walls. That was the first time I heard someone actually say “that word”, a friend at school. I was starting to grow up.

7 years later I was in the army at age 19 and “that word” was very common. I heard it hundreds of times everyday. Spoke it too and I fit right in. Just kinda rolls off the tongue. It’s a multi faceted word that can work in many different scenarios.

When I came home from the army 4 years later both my sisters were grown and I heard one of them, in anger, say “that word”. That was the first time I heard a girl say it and it twisted my brain inside out. There must be something wrong with me because 40+ years later when I hear a female say “that word” (very rarely in person) my brain still goes through convulsions.