"Mother Fu----"

       Pouring a weighty frying pan of food into a bowl, I said, "This is a heavy Mothah!"  Which instantly brought back basic training at Ft. Knox, Kentucky.

       A Southern Black chaplain gave us a lecture on the soldier's use of language, calmly admonishing us that we didn't need to use the term "Mother Fu----."

       There were lots of Black and White draftees in that room, and as I recall, the Blacks first of all and then the rest of us did everything we could to smother snickers, snorts, and bursts of laughter whenever the expression was mentioned.

       I doubt its use was one whit reduced by the lecture that day; and I added it to my vocabulary.  But maybe that truncated "Mothah" of mine is a tribute to the partial success of the good chaplain's efforts.