That evening we heard a teaser on Fox News about a ludicrous and ineffectual cussing ban before the California legislature. Grandpa opined that people seem to swear less today than they used to, because use of such language is considered in polite society to be a sign of ignorance.

Nevermind that the primary reason that Grandpa doesn't hear as much bad language anymore is that he DOESN'T HEAR, period. Or that his primary exposure to pop culture since retirement is Fox News, which isn't exactly representative of society at large. Or that even people who use obscenity and profanity in their daily lives tend to avoid it in front of their pastors, which he was for over fifty years. He would affably agree when I would suggest alternate explanations for his lack of exposure to bad language in the last twenty or so years, then immediately loop back around to how swearing seems to be on the wane, because people think it's a sign of ignorance.

After a half dozen or so go-arounds on this theme, I drew a parallel to smoking, which prompted him to go off on another loop about how his father had enjoyed cigars until he joined the Gideons and became convicted about having something in his life that he couldn't do without. This was a more interesting topic to me than a counterfactual decline in offensive language, so we spent some time reminiscing about my great-grandfather's civic involvement, from the smoke-filled American Legion post to smoke-free Gideons and CBMC meetings. He also recalled going to basketball and football games in his childhood and seeing the stands light up like so many flitting fireflies, only to be enveloped in a haze over the course of the contest. "You don't see that anymore."