If you go to ball games, you know that you can’t use swear words at the ballpark. Flying Spaghetti Monster forbid that little kids should hear you, and start using those words themselves!

The hell with that…I live near an elementary school, and the kids walk past my house every day, going to and from school. The language that I hear coming out of their mouths is enough to make a sailor blush! And I doubt they learned it all at sporting events.

They probably learned it from their very own parents. Consider this dialogue from the movie A Christmas Story…

Ralphie: Oooh fuuudge!
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Only I didn’t say “Fudge.” I said THE word, the big one, the queen-mother of dirty words, the “F-dash-dash-dash” word!
Mr. Parker: [stunned] *What* did you say?
Ralphie: Uh, um…
Mr. Parker: That’s… what I thought you said. Get in the car. Go on!
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] It was all over - I was dead. What would it be? The guillotine? Hanging? The chair? The rack? The Chinese water torture? Hmmph. Mere child’s play compared to what surely awaited me.
———-
Later, at home…

Mother: All right. Now, are you ready to tell me where you heard that word?
Ralphie as Adult: [narrating] Now, I had heard that word at least ten times a day from my old man. He worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. It was his true medium; a master. But, I chickened out and said the first name that came to mind.
Ralphie: Schwartz!

And then Ralphie’s mom calls Schwartz’ mom to tell her that Ralphie had learned a bad word from her son. She goes, “and where do you think he learned that word?” and Mrs. Schwartz said, “his father?”

So, chances are, your kid didn’t learn the F-bomb from me at the ballpark. But some people love to lay the blame on anyone else but themselves. That’s why I am no longer allowed to say that word, and a whole dictionary full of others, at the ballpark, lest I risk getting kicked out.

Sometimes, you can’t even go to watch a game at a sports bar, and be allowed to swear when someone does something stupid. For some reason that did not exist when I was a kid, it has now become acceptable to bring children into bars. Maybe it has something to do with the smoking bans that many states now have…now that bars are smoke-free, it must be okay to bring kids into them. Never mind that there is still drinking and swearing going on. Many so-called bars have gone so far as to ban swearing.

As far as I am concerned, a bar is an ADULT place. If you don’t like drinking and cussing, don’t go into a bar.

Anyhoo, there are still some bastions of drinking and cussing still out there. One such place is the Wild Rover Pub, in Manchester, NH. This is an Irish bar/restaurant, not far from the Fisher Cats ballpark. The place is small, and divided neatly into two sections: the bar and the dining room. The bar is THE place to hang out…they have several flat-screen HDTVs, always with sports on. People play drinking games and cuss all they want. Even the bartender cusses. Nobody cares. This bar is NOT kid-friendly. And we like it that way. This has become THE place to go to after a Fisher Cats game.

The restaurant side of it is probably okay for kids, but we hardly see or hear any over there. This is definitely more of an adult establishment. I don’t even know if they have a kids’ menu or not.

The food at the Wild Rover is excellent, you’d better break out the Phentermine after you eat there. Portions are generous and come at reasonable prices. I highly recommend the fish & chips. Mike’s favorite dish the the lamb stew.

Yesterday, we were there and they had a fried seafood basket as a special, with clams and scallops. I tend to be careful as to where I order any fried seafood, because it is so easy to overcook it and make it as chewy as rubber bands. But the cooks here do a great job, the seafood was perfectly cooked.

I just hope that the idiot parents who drag their *we couldn’t care less about baseball* kids to games don’t go to the Wild Rover after seeing the ad in the program, and complain when they hear people cussing. Every other damned place in the world is kid-friendly, please go THERE and leave one of the few adult-oriented places alone!

Once again, if your kid drops the F-bomb, chances are, s/he learned it from a family member, and not some stranger in a bar. Even if they did learn it from someone in a bar, it is still your fault. KIDS DO NOT BELONG IN BARS.