I recently encountered two words that I had not heard since my teenage days – Dolt and Blivot.
Blivot was deeply embedded in our vocabulary. It was clearly an insult, but, like many things of which early teens have knowledge, our understanding was, at best, incomplete. Yet, we tossed it about freely, like candy being thrown off a fire truck at the community parade.
I remember the day that its meaning was revealed to me. I sat in Steve’s barber shop on a Saturday morning. Steve’s was a traditional barber shop of the day, a combination site of male grooming and male culture. The men almost daily gathered to talk, smoke cigars or stoogies, read the Scranton Times,or The Tribune, or Playboy, and occasionally get a haircut or a shave. I frequented the shop twice a month on those Saturday mornings when my mother said, “You need a haircut.”
On this particular visit, some of the men were extra vocal because the local football team had squeaked out a victory over a team that many felt should have been outclassed. One of the men repeatedly picked on the head coach, John Henzes, saying that he was too old and didn’t prepare the team well any more. I bristled at the suggestion that this man had the audacity to criticize a coach who would someday be in the National High School Coaches Hall of Fame. “You’re a blivot” , I muttered in a voice that I thought was under my breath.
The shop roared! (Had I said that out loud). Steve, the shop owner, took control. “You should apologize”, he said. It must have been clear from my expression that I did not understand the magnitude of my error, for immediately another man known as “Squire” spoke up, “Do you know what you called him – “Ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag”.”
I shrank. They laughed. I apologized. The critic shook my hand. I learned a lesson about language and how men hang out.
My Thoughts and the Thoughts of Others 