I’ve heard a lot of epithets in my days, but for pure evocative energy and crude humor, the one favored by former Indianapolis Star & News printer Loren Ridgeway sticks in my mind more than any other.
Loren was a balding, bespectacled, profane little guy who always wore a white t-shirt under his blue denim printer’s apron back in the late 1960s and 1970s when the Star-News composing room was a cacophony of clattering Linotype and Intertype machines and pages full of lead type were built on brass-topped “turtle” tables.
Anyone who provoked Loren, whether accidentally or on purpose, was forever cursed as a “walleyed cocksucker.” He said it with a grin and it was always clear that he was kidding, but it was startling the first time you were on the receiving end of it.
These days, I catch myself muttering Loren’s favorite curse whenever Obama or any of his cronies turn up on my TV screen.
Thanks for your contribution to my repertoire of curses and profanity, Loren.
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