Little Dum-Dum

Annmarie Throckmorton, M.A.
2 hours ago
2 min read

For reasons that I have explained elsewhere in this blog, my maternal grandfather never spoke but five words to me in my entire life, he said:

"Well, you're a little dum-dum*."

I was about five years old and I had noticed that he refused to talk to me. So one day I got up my courage and I tugged at his sleeve, saying "Hey, talk to me." Then he said the only thing that he would ever say to me. Without a glance in my direction he said with a mean laugh, "Well, you're a little dum-dum*."

I asked my maternal grandmother what dum-dum meant, and she said with hesitance because she had heard him speak, "It's a kind of candy." So I check with my mother who cringed and told me that dum-dums were awful bullets.

When I told my mother what my grandfather had said to me, she shrugged and told me that I was lucky that is all he did. When she was a girl she had asked him for a penny, just a penny, and he had reached into his pocket as if he was going to give her a penny but then he handed her a rusty nail. And over the course of my life I heard from several women that he did far, far worse to anyone he could get ahold of. I always felt so sorry for my mother, she was so sad for so long about so many things.

I do not give a fig for what my grandfather did, said, or meant. I just posted it today for the record.

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* "Dum-dum bullets are expanding bullets designed to increase in diameter upon impact, creating a larger wound channel and more tissue damage." Used in WWII.

Dum Dums is a well-known American brand of spherical lollipops introduced in 1924 by the Akron Candy Company.

Little Dum-Dum