By Al Batt, Tribune columnist

I don’t really swear.

Oh, I’ve tried it, but I wasn’t very good at it. I couldn’t cuss enough to count.

I know what you are thinking.

How do I fix things?

How am I able to golf?

I don’t fix things. I break things. I don’t golf. My father told me that golf courses were nothing more than a waste of good pasture.

My father’s choice of a swear word was &uot;cheese and crackers.&uot; Others have told me about their fathers saying &uot;cheese and rice.&uot;

I have found that using a word like &uot;Buick&uot; or &uot;cellophane&uot; works just as well as a genuine cussword whenever one is called for.

I don’t really swear, but I know people who do.

When I was a boy, there was a fellow who farmed in our township who was a champion cusser.

He was a six-time returning champion of the township-wide cussing bee.

This guy could weave a tapestry of profanity that had to be heard to be believed.

More than one Baptist preacher was struck deaf just from being within listening range.

His ability and creativity were legendary. It was said that he could cuss a blue streak for 10 minutes without repeating a word.

If there had been steroid usage in those halcyon days of yore, I would have suspected him of using steroids to enhance his swearing skills.

One day, I was baling hay for this fellow. He didn’t have much for livestock, so he sold much of his hay crop.

On this particular day, I found myself sitting in the passenger seat of his old pickup as it belched smoke while struggling to pull a load of hay up a small hill on a gravel road. We were in transit to deliver the load of cow food to another farmer who had purchased it.

As the pickup became the little engine that thought it could, its owner encouraged it with foul-mouthed cheers.

His wife was driving their new car behind us. She was there in case the pickup conked out in mid-journey, as its past proved it wont to do.

The new car was the first one the family had ever owned. They had scrimped and saved for years in order to buy one. The receipts from the sale of this hay was to be used to help pay for the new car.

The fellow was so proud of that new car that it was difficult for him to describe it with the appropriate profanity.

As we chugged up the hill, something went horribly wrong. The pin broke in the tongue of the wagon. This pin was very important as it was what held the old pickup and the wagon of hay together.

The wagon separated from the pickup and rolled down the hill it was previously attempting to climb.

The good news was that the wagon didn’t roll far.

The bad news was that the wagon didn’t roll far.

The reason it didn’t go far was that it rolled right into the family’s new car driven by the wife.

The wagon gave the new car a larruping good lick. The result was that the new car no longer looked anything like a new car.

You would have thought that this would have made the runaway wagon of hay happy, but it didn’t.

The wagon hit the car and then veered off the road where it promptly dumped the entire load of hay into the creek.

This was the hay that was to be used to pay for the new car that no longer looked anything like a new car.

I could see in his face that storm clouds were gathering.

I braced myself for the cuss-storm of the century that would be soon arriving.

Not a single swear word crossed the man’s lips.

I believe in miracles and I sensed I was experiencing one then.

I looked at the soggy load of hay, the beat-up new car and the man’s wife who was alternating between crying and yelling.

I waited for the vulgarity-laced tirade to begin for as long as I could. I could wait no more. I had to tempt the fates. I had to ask.

&uot;Doesn’t this make you feel like erupting into an endless cluster of cussing?&uot; I asked meekly, trying to be the calm to his storm.

The fellow took off his DeKalb seed corn cap and looked at me.

&uot;Oh, I feel like cussing all right, but I don’t think I could do the occasion justice.&uot;

(Hartland resident Al Batt writes a column for the Tribune each Wednesday and Sunday.)