Jumping Jehosophat! and Judas PRIEST! were a couple of mild and mildly Biblical sounding exclamations common in my family. Lots of good hill folk phrases from Arkansas: "Oh, it was Daddy and the B'ar!" for a dust-up, usually more verbal than physical; Lie? He'd lie like a rug (always applicable to polititans); I hain't see'd you since Hec was a pup; Well, I swan (for I'll be darned), nearer than dammit (that close).

A lot of the expressions John and I used we picked up from shared hearing of things like Beyond the Fringe ("There's a very GOOD chance, Mr Spiggot" meaning lotsa luck, and "Have you got the picnic basket?"...a sort of rhetorical question); Mort Sahl ("A BIG mistake...don't make it! said of his crazy landlady who's penchant for displaying the flag made people think she was a poling place, his wonderfully sarcastic take of a politician speaking condescendingly of 3rd world people, "To dumb to write their name in the dirt with a stick." And the ever popular "A man has to believe in something, and I believe I'll have a drink."...from a good and very funny author who's name I can't remember at the moment.