I Do Dassn't

When it came time for the Sheriff of Mayberry, North Carolina, to fire Mayberry's school crossing guard, the guard told Andy Griffith, “You dassn’t!” --- and Andy Griffith replied, “I do dassn’t!”

I was very surprised to find out that someone besides my grandmother used the word “dassn’t”.  Grandma was the only real person I ever heard use the word.  As far as I was concerned, Grandma owned that word.

I was in junior high school when Mom and Dad came in the door one afternoon with Grandma and a couple of suitcases. “Grandpa is in the hospital, and Grandma is coming to stay with us.”

Grandpa died that night.  In the morning, Dad pulled me aside and gave me instructions: go give your mother a hug and tell her you are sorry that her father has died.  

I did as instructed.  Years later, I still think was the most important fatherly advice I ever received.

Grandma stayed with us for many years.

She had wonderful sewing skills and many people came to her for alterations. She always made time to sit down and read the daily newspaper, which arrived in the afternoon back in those days.

She helped out the household by loading and unloading the dishwasher.  When loading the dishwasher, she scrutinized every utensil.  She was unwavering in her belief that if a utensil had not been used during a meal, it should never go into the dishwasher, it should always go back into the silverware drawer.

  

She probably would have said: "You dassn't wash a clean spoon".

Dassn't was a contraction of “dare not”, but it really meant “should not”.  You dassn’t do this = You shouldn’t do this.  You dassn’t do that = You shouldn’t do that.

I heard that word a lot as she gave me grandmotherly advice.  But her most memorable use of dassn’t was for a soldier in a World War Two documentary.

Grandma and I were watching a black-and-white documentary about the Burma Campaign in the Southeast Asian jungle.  The campaign began with the British retreating long distances.  The British lost 50,000 men before finally managing to regroup and push the Japanese back.

Besides facing enemy gunfire, the soldiers faced malaria, monsoons, dysentery, heat.

At one point, the documentary showed a British soldier hacking his way through the jungle underbrush with a machete.

Grandma could not resist giving the soldier in the documentary some grandmotherly advice: “Oh, he dassn’t use that big knife --- he could cut himself”.

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So much more to fear and to endure: a 58-minute BBC documentary in color about the longest campaign of World War Two --- The Burma Campaign:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9bvTrK-130

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  You can purchase a copy at  http://www.puppyoutofbreath.com