Morals ?

I remember being a kid growing up in Colusa, I don't think i was a teenager yet. There was this one time i was outside and one of my cousins came up and stuck his one finger in my face and i said what the heck are you doing and he says, this means f u, he learned it from one of the older guys that just got out of jail. so i tried it and said hey this is pretty cool, so we went around telling everyone f u ( all our cousins and friends that is ) and sticking our middle finger out at them. Before we knew it, everyone was doing it, then a guy comes out with a different version, he pulls the two fingers that are next to your middle one down and gives it a whole new look, so there we go again practicing all over the neighborhood, well i didn't see my Mom standing out there with my Tia and my Mom asks me, what does that mean ? I just kinda shrugged my shoulders and thought, man am i ever in trouble now, i couldn't even say hell in front of my parents, but my Tia says, i know what it means and she tells my Mom. Mom turns towards me and i think but i'm not sure but i think she called me Cabron and goes on to say, if i ever catch you pointing that finger like that again i'm going to.........well i don't remember her exact words, but i know they weren't very nice. Of course she had to tell my Dad and i think but i'm not sure but i think he called me Cabron too. To make things worse Dad asks me at the dinner table, what did you do to get Mom mad at you today. Dad says it with this big smile on his face, everyone's looking at me and i'm trying to find a place to hide. Funny how you can look back at these things and laugh about it, but at the time it was serious stuff for a young guy. Now a days kids drop the f bomb all over the place and don't think nothing of it, but that doesn't make it right. A lot of things that were not right back in the day are ok now. I remember my Mom making me go with my Sis when she went out on a date. She was like 18 at the time. It was ok by me, i used to get candy, sodas, go cruising and i got to go to the show sometimes. The thing is, they never seemed to mind having me with them. I'd like to think it was because i was such a cool kid, but i could be wrong. Whenever we walked in a house that was not ours we had to be on our best behavior,Mom and Dad made sure of it. The last thing you wanted to do was disrespect a Tio or Tia or any of your elders for that matter. My Mom had a pretty strong sense of moral character that she expected all her kids to live by and my Dad backed her up almost all the time, but there were times when Dad would tell Mom nope you can't expect him to do that or he would just stick up for you if he thought Mom was being a little too hard on you and when he did Mom would back off. Most of the time i guess he would just figure "you screwed up Cabron, so now your gonna pay for it". You couldn't argue with them cause you knew they were right. I was hardly ever accused of doing something that i wasn't guilty of, so you see there's always some exceptions. One time the police came over to the house and Dad went out and asked him what's going on and the police said i stole something and my Dad called me out there and said did you do this and i said no, which was the truth. I didn't steal it but i knew who did, now if the police would have asked me if i knew anything about it, i would have been in big trouble. My Dad told me when he got me by myself, if you stole it, you go and turn yourself in. I told him i didn't and i can honestly say i was telling the truth. Thank God he didn't ask me if i knew who did. wheew.