by Rupert Flagg

Created on: July 22, 2009   Last Updated: July 23, 2009

Why is it that when we see or hear the word "quotations" most of us, in our minds, place the word "famous" in front of it? I, for the life of, me could not think of one single quotation by someone "famous" when I read this title suggestion.

The first one that came to my mind was something my grandfather used to say all the time, "It's better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt." It wasn't until I became a teen that I found out that it wasn't something he'd made up, it was something he quoted from the bible.

My grandmother use to answer questions she thought silly, with the phrase, "Mus' is, 'cuz mus ain't don't sound right." I must admit that to the very moment of writing this for you, I haven't the slightest idea where it came from. I honestly have a head full of things the people around me used to say, that shaped who I am today.

They were nuggets of wisdom, learned through experience, some hard, simply because they were born, negro, circa 1916, trying to help me, mulatto, navigate the sixties and seventies. When faced with the prospect of no longer being who he was raised to be, my granddad sat on the front porch and recapped for us kids, that through the years we'd had many titles, "negro, colored, now they wants to call us black. I say it ain't what they call us it's what we choose to answer to that tells them who we thinks we is."

I learned things about the male sexual nature that shaped my taste in men, "Old men give ya worms." My grandmother used to say, so when the girls around me were looking at the men, old men, who came around.... I stuck to ones my age or younger, After all, who wants to be infested with worms?
The funniest one, "When it leaves they tail, it'll go to they mouth", used to puzzle me until I realized years later that it was her way of saying that as a man ages, he tends to resort to oral sex, not being able to get his "tail" to perform.
My grand parents were full of colorful phrases that caused me to ponder them until I fell asleep. They were not big on explaining anything, which was the way of the elders. She'd say, "I give it to you rough dried and you have to iron it yourself."

The quotes from my life, too numerous to list, still have the ability to give me pause when making a decision or even dealing with a situation. They are so woven into the fabric that is me, that it is now DNA. I remember that there were times they quoted things I heard other people say like, "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you." Again another quote from the bible. Or this one: The gift we have and the gift god gives us is to see ourselves as other see us." This one taught me how to accept a compliment, which is hard to do for some people.

Whether or not this article is judged to be the best, I ask that you take the time to consider the things spoken into your life by those around you while growing up; I'm willing to bet that those are the things that helped to form your foundation of life.

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