Playing the dozens on Oakcrest Drive

Had a correspondence with Mr. Miller last week and he reminded me of one of the many strange rituals of our childhood; back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, while we attended lovely Xavier High School, we would generally walk home together along with another friend, the lovely and talented fellow known to one and all as Goose. We would walk together down Oakcrest Drive, a pleasant residential street in our neighborhood, and we would spend the entire time ripping each other with less-than-loving cheap shots. Our banter generally didn't rise to the level of brilliance; no one would confuse it with dialogue from a Judd Apatow movie. It often went something like this:

Mr. D: "So Goose, did you manage to go a whole day without drooling on yourself?"
Goose: "Shut up, you buck-toothed varmint!"
Mr. M: "C'mon Goose, he's got braces now. He's not so buck-toothed, but he's still pretty ugly."
Mr. D and Goose (in unison): "Who asked you, Snoot?"

If there was snow on the ground, and there often was, a common tactic would be take a hunk of snow and throw at someone's feet and shout "Dance!" Occasionally tempers might flare and a half-hearted punch might be thrown, but generally it was pretty tame. It was a version of what used to be called "the dozens," an inner-city, generally African-American tradition of ritualized cheap shots that lives on in such forms as "your Mama's so fat" jokes and this classic couplet from War's 1975 classic "Why Can't We Be Friends"

I hear you're working for the CIA
They would not have you in the Maf-I-Ay

Adolescent boys like insults, for whatever reason. My son Ben continues to flash a sharper wit as he gets older, although he's still at the age where he often blows the punchline because he starts laughing at his own joke before he gets it told (a tendency that did not derail the career of Johnny Carson, so he has hope). I always try to keep my perspective on this sort of thing, even when Ben is attempting to zing his sister, who at the age of 7 already has a tongue like a lash. As a parent, there are a lot of things you are officially supposed to disapprove of, but it's hard not to remember playing the dozens on Oakcrest Drive and simultaneously maintain a stern visage when your kids are playing their own game 30 years later.