Best Cuss Word in a Christmas Show

American Heartland Theatre attendees who may have expected a nostalgia piece as sweet as ribbon candy might have been taken aback with last winter's production of A Christmas Story. Based on the popular 1983 film, the comedy included among its likable hero's multiple childhood foibles an inadvertent slip of the F-word. The young actor, Jack Hochman, handled it like a pro, contorting his face into that classic grimace that implies having committed a major "Oops!" His parents, played by Melinda McCrary and Martin English, responded with the appropriate meltdown that parents might have had in the 1940s -- and reached for the soap. We admit we're old enough to remember that slippery, chemical taste, which made the scene more winning.