In the presence of certain company, my dad likes to swear. A lot. If you’ve ever been fortunate enough to meet him and find that fact a shock, then you simply are not among those in that certain company of people. Maybe you find that comforting — I dunno.

Now that I’ve made that fact known about my father, you’re probably saying to yourself, “why, he’s just a nasty potty-mouth, your dad is!” Well hold on there, bub! Not so fast! My father’s not nasty at all. In fact, he’s a downright nice guy — anyone can attest to that. As far as the potty-mouth comment goes, well, I’ve come to understand recently that it’s more accurate to say he’s a “God-fearing potty-mouth”.

Interestingly enough, the situations that incite the rare profane language to spout forth from my father can be summed up by the “three G’s”: Guys, Gambling and Golf (there’s also “Dropping a boulder on his foot”, but it didn’t start with a ‘G’, so I left that out). But there’s that fourth ‘G’-word that causes him to choke back on those foul words like beer to a funneling frat boy: God. It’s the mixture of any one of those three G’s with that mighty fourth ‘G’ that causes a sort-of cursing short-circuit to happen in my father’s brain.

I have to imagine that the St. Francis catholic church in Dracut, Massachusetts (welcome all of you who searched for that term and wound up here) isn’t new to the concept of a church golf outing. It’s a way to get parishioners together in a large setting to play some golf, eat food, drink beer and of course, be guilted into forking over cash (again, welcome term searchers).

As anyone who has played or (sadly) watched golf knows, groups of golfers are typically put into “foursomes”. The church outing has limited openings for players, so everyone’s forced to either come up with people to fill your group, or let the organizers fill it for you. On this particular occasion, my group consisted of my dad, my brother and myself, leaving the church to fill the final opening for us. Being that this was a day of Golf and all (notice that menacing capital letter), my dad felt particularly in his element. That is, until our fourth arrived: Father Kiley.

My brother and I didn’t have to say a word; the looks we exchanged were enough. Before we met our fourth, from the time we had gotten out of the van and into our golf cart, I don’t think a single noun was uttered without a colorful prepending adjective that sounds like ’shucking’. If you weren’t able to decrypt my code, let’s just say we weren’t having oysters. Now, suddenly, that all came to a screeching halt, for we were now in the presence of a conduit to the mighty forth ‘G’.

Father Kiley was his usual jovial self, patting us on the back and wishing us a great game of best-ball. It was actually nice to have the guy with us for a round of golf, because he really was a personable guy. My father switched into clean-mouth-mode pretty easily. I sort-of felt bad for the guy, seeing as he was both in and out of his element and all.

First up to the tee-box was my dad. He set up his shot, checked his line, cranked back and then let his driver rip into the ball. First shot — into the woods. What came next I can only describe as being a battle of two ‘G’s (Guys and Golf) against the mighty ‘G’. Mind you, what follows all happened within, what sounded like, one sentence.

The two ‘G’s come out swinging, double-teaming the mighty ‘G’ in one fell swoop.

“God Dammit!”

Ooooh…that one had to hurt. The mighty ‘G’ is back on his feet now, ready to return blows.

“I mean…God Darnit!”

The mighty ‘G’ clips the first ‘G’ right in the nose, but the second ‘G’ gets in a lucky punch at the last second.

“I mean…Gosh Darnit!”

The mighty ‘G’ is victorious! The first two ‘G’s run off with their tail beneath their legs. Had there been money on the line, who knows how a triple team would’ve turned out, but today, there was no match.

I don’t think my father had any concept of what had just happened. The battle that had ensued was something that was uncontrollable, subconscious if you will. To my brother and I, we could only bow our heads in a tiny shred of disappointment — there would be no good ol’ fashion cursing today.

That was, until Father Kiley took a shot into the woods on the fifth hole.

“Ah…shit.”

New hope arose, burning in my father’s lungs, ready to burst out at the mere moment he felt the need! He was suddenly in the presence of that certain company of people that brought comfort and strength to the utterance of foul words.

My brother and I once again exchanged glances, and we both knew that for the next thirteen holes, this would indeed be the day of golf with our dad we had come to remember from days past. Suddenly, the ‘G’ in ‘Guys’ felt stronger and more defined, as if it had been somewhat weaker in the first battle of the day. Much to our surprise, Father Kiley really was one of us.

It was the sixth hole, and I was last up at the tee. I sliced it into the outskirts of the trees.

“C’mon guys,” my father said. “Let’s go find Keith’s fucking ball.”