When we were growing up, one of the hard and fast rules of our house was that we were not allowed to say, “Shut up.” Ever. We were, however, allowed to tell someone to “be quiet,” which somehow didn’t pack the same punch. We envied our neighbors, the Herman boys, who could tell each other to shut up whenever they felt like it. They could even add a push or a shove, if their brothers deserved it. Not us. We could tell each other, or anyone within earshot, to be quiet, but it was generally ignored because it seemed more of a suggestion than a command.

On one of our family trips to the coast, we loaded the car for a drive that would take about two hours. Our dad was at the wheel, with Momma in the front passenger seat, and Nancy and I were in the back. There were no seat belts then, so we were free to move around and entertain ourselves. One of our favorite entertainments was to sing “Clementine.” We knew most of the lyrics, and we loved to hear ourselves belt them out. Over, and over. Our mother thought we were funny.

“Oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’, oh my darlin’ Clementine,

“You are lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry, Clementine!

“Light she was and like a feather, and her shoes were number nine,

“Herring boxes without topses, sandals were for Clementine.”

And then we would start over, adding the parts of any other lines we remembered, or thought we remembered, or simply made up. It didn’t matter.

I don’t know how we stood ourselves, but we kept it up for almost half of the trip. Suddenly, at one particular bend in the old Pacheco Pass Road, our father gripped the wheel, turned and glared at us just long enough to shout, “Oh, for the love of Mike, SHUT UP!”

Shut up? Nancy and I looked at each other, our eyes as big as Clementine’s herring boxes. Had he actually used the forbidden language? Another rule in our house was that if it wasn’t good for the kids to say, it wasn’t good for the parents to say in front of the kids. But he had! So we had permission, didn’t we?

Nancy looked at me. “Shut up!”

I looked at her. “No, YOU shut up.”

Forgetting all about Darlin’ Clementine, we raised our voices in a chorus of, “shuddup, shuddup, shuddup!!”

The release of years of pent up words filled the interior of our Plymouth sedan and lasted, I think, most of the last half of the trip. We found every excuse and every way to say, “shut up.” I don’t know how our father stood it, but he had opened the flood gates that had held us back for so long, and I now know how hard he was probably kicking himself.

Naturally our mother took things in hand and later explained that we had driven our father to lose his temper, but that his outburst had in no way changed the “No Shut Up” rule. So we were back to square one, except, of course, for those times when we could justify to ourselves the use of the forbidden term, and provided we didn’t tell on each other. After all, hadn’t Daddy been justified?

It’s a funny thing, though. To this day I don’t remember ever again singing “Clementine” on any of our car trips.