F Bombs

Rick Wimer

After I retired from my Bomb-free career in property management, I joined a gym to keep myself fit and busy. Talk about Bombs!”

F Bombs! Every time I hear one it’s like a bolt of lightning piercing every nerve throughout my body. The sound of one, almost anywhere, any situation, or from any human just shockingly disgusts me. 

It’s not that I haven’t dropped one in my life, I have. I’m not sure when I may have let out my first one, possibly in my late high school days, but only among my buddies and not in public.

Not one was heard from the lips of my father and other adults the I grew up around. I never heard one dropped in the professional setting of my beloved Bradford Hotel in all the years that I worked there in high school. If they uttered one, it was not in front of kids.

However, once I enlisted into the Air Force for four years, from basic training to discharge, I became fluent in every usage it had, not only my verbiage, but also in letters I wrote to a high school buddy. I recall that it seemed at times, every other word out of my mouth was Bomb this, Bomb that and Bomb you and the horse that you road in on. It was almost like speaking fluently in a foreign language.

Living in the barracks during basic training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, or stationed at Keesler AFB in Mississippi or Elmendorf in Alaska, was nothing more than classrooms of learning how, who, what and when to Bomb something. 

If degrees had been given out, I’m sure I would have earned an MBA. I wrote a letter to one of my St. Mary’s High School classmates while he was stationed in Viet Nam. Amazingly, it survived Nam, and found its way back to me years later from another classmate. I still have it to this day. Over the years, I have occasionally read it and became and still do, embarrassed that I actually wrote it. There almost virtually is not a sentence in it that did not contain a Bomb. It’s disgusting. It makes me cringe every time I read it. 

Cleaning it up after the Air Force

I’m not sure what or when the occasion was that clearly spoke to me that I would no longer tolerate it’s usage by myself and those around me. But I do remember the moment clearly. I surmise it may have been at a gathering or business meeting where its usage virtually seemed totally out of place. I suddenly shockingly heard myself Bombing and realized I was the only one in the group doing so.

From that moment on, whenever the Bomb appeared, I would caution the Dropper to please not ever let one go in my presence. I would do it in my business meetings. In fact, it was mentioned in the “do and don’ts of the business meeting agenda I held with my employees or at professional gatherings I attended.

I had no compunction and still don’t about shutting someone down immediately if they used a Bomb in my presence. 

After I retired from my Bomb-free career in property management, I joined an Anytime Fitness gym to keep myself fit and busy. Talk about Bombs! They were everywhere. Along with slamming weight, loud grunting and conversations, talking on a cell phone, sharing of weights and putting weights back, profanity was and is still one of the don’ts of proper gym etiquette.

At first, to avoid controversy and getting punched out, I had to be very selective of when, where and how I tried to shut down Bomb droppage in my workout area. When I did, some of them just thought of me as a jerk and flipped me off. I decided to get myself a pair of Beats headphones and drown it all out in music.

Through a set of circumstances, which is another story in itself, two years later and for the next six years I became the manager of the gym. “Let the games begin!”

Shutting down the Bombs at King’s Pointe

Flash forward to last summer. I’m on my daily trike ride from my home in West Lake Estates to Harry Schaller’s driveway and back. I’m sitting at the circle park at King’s Pointe between the kid’s playground and the park itself enjoying the view of the lake. Behind me I hear many youngsters on the playground emanating what I call the “sound of happy.”

On the park there is a large group of teens or younger playing volleyball emanating Bomb after Bomb after Bomb; all within earshot of the “sounds of happy.” Momentarily, it shocked me. But true to form, I called one of the older teens over and explained the situation to him and what I was hearing and could he do anything. He went back to the field, huddled with all the players. 

And for the rest of the time I sat there, not a Bomb was heard. As I left to complete my ride, I flashed him a thumbs up which he returned. I have often wondered and hoped that it continued after I left. 

Now flash forward to today’s political environment and the recent newscasts that seem to repeat over and over and over again, bleeped out narratives of politicians dropping Bomb after Bomb. As always, it disgusts me but makes me wonder if that’s the only way they think they can get their points across. It’s so crude and rude and perish the thought that it is to serve as todays methods of expressing different positions. 

I often wish that I could somehow huddle with them all and get them all together and negotiating agreements without the demeaning and disrespectful use of Bombs. Am I alone on this? I don’t think so. We are better and smarter than all of that. Prayer Bombs sound much better to me and far more effective.

Rick Wimer writes from Storm Lake.