Keywords from my childhood

Here is a list of words that carry sinister meanings from my childhood. They are just words now, but they certainly didn't seem so then. Indeed being with my dad was quite stressful as you never knew what random thing would set him off. I intend to keep editing and revising this as new words and phrases occur to me.

Spooks - the name of the people who were harassing us.

Commies - almost a synonym for spook. There was a vast Communist conspiracy, and we were fighting on the front lines.

Bugs - we were constantly under surveillance by bugs hidden everywhere. This was so the CIA could keep an eye on us, but the signal was also broadcast to everyday people all over the world in their houses.

Surveillance - see bugs.

Reds - another synonym for Commie.

Harrassment - my dad constantly referred to the harassment we were all getting. Best I can figure out, although maybe there is no rational explanation, he felt that he was protected in some way, so that the spooks had to resort to fucking with him in small ways all day long, rather than outright assassinating him as they wanted to.

Jax - one time my dad mentioned that this was the name of a demon, after seeing various trucks with the name on their side.

AIX - a run of letters in a license plate that my dad said was the CIA sending him a signal: "aches." My dad seemed to think most of the cars on the road were spooks, and they were sending harassing messages through the license plates. At one point he read in the paper that one of the local highways had seen increased usage of tens of thousands of cars over some period of time, and he intimated that these were all government agents.

Transpire - this one really drove him nuts. It was constantly being misused to mean "occur" by reputable journalists, who obviously knew better. (The actual meaning is related to plant breathing.) Since it was obvious that trained journalists would not misuse a word like that, the word had to be a coded signal (similar to the AIX example) meant to fuck with him.

Perverse - This was a hotbutton word. My dad was constantly railing about what he called "perverts" which among other things included gays. When watching a really bad  Doctor Who episode from the Sylvester McCoy era, he commented that one of the younger actors had not yet been completely recruited by the perverts, but he was on his way. My dad mentioned how the spooks were also a bunch of perverts. At some point when we were growing up, my dad became worried that I was turning gay. He once ordered me to pick out who I thought was the prettiest model in a catalog, a rather awkward experience to say the least, and at another point foisted pornography on me. I guess he thought this would convert me!?

Demonic - While we were visiting my dad over the weekend he got it into his head that we should all go see "Ghostbusters." My brother and I were highly skeptical and kept saying that we didn't think he would like it, but he ignored us. I remember cringing through the movie wondering how he was going to take things, and after it was over I asked him what he thought. Face stony with anger he just said "I thought it was demonic."

Jamming - My dad believed that the CIA could control our thoughts and behaviors through devices (microcircuitry) in our watches, belts and shoes. We were forbidden to wear watches and were supposed to wear plastic bags in our shoes. After a while we had to carry around batteries wired to speakers in our pockets to ward off the "jamming," which is what he called the mind control. Often I would have no idea what I was doing or saying that set my dad off, but he would inform me that I "was being jammed right now." I guess he saw the same sinister behavior in my brother and I as he did in the rest of the world, and in order to explain it he decided we were being "jammed" by the spooks. It ended up being the ultimate form of dismissiveness. If there was something he didn't like about me or my brother, he could just dismiss it as "jamming." It robbed us of our own personal agency. It was a theft.

Don't take any wooden nickels - Early on, before my dad came up with the mind control theory, he accused me of working for the spooks. I remember the details somewhat. He was giving me a ride back from high school and I mentioned that I was thinking of buying a small motor. (I was a bit of hobbyist, and I had ideas about making a model car that would actually run, although this was beyond my technical expertise.) In any event, my dad got angry and asked me why I had said that? I was baffled, but it turned out that he thought I was deliberately harassing him. He had taken my brother to a science fair earlier, and the joint project that my brother had worked on with another kid had been scrapped by the other kid's father and replaced by his own. This had shocked and disappointed my brother, and my dad  felt the sting acutely. I either hadn't heard about it or hadn't given it much thought, but my dad was sure that I was deliberately insulting him by using the motor to remind him of this disappointing experience. Later he accused me of working with the CIA, believing they had instructed me to harass him. Despite my vehement denials, he took to telling me "Don't take any wooden nickels" during this period, as his reminder to me that he knew what I was up to. I was confused and angered. I remember pacing back and forth in the living room thinking, "I won't let anyone control me. Not the CIA nor my dad."  It was soon after this that he revised his theory to the one where we were being mind controlled. I brought up this whole "wooden nickel" incident to my dad many years later, and he didn't remember it. I wonder how much stuff he can remember. When my brother and I have confronted him previously, he's dug in his heels and tried to justify himself, bombarding us with web stories about "psychotronic" warfare. Whatever.