The value of being sweet

Saturday, May 14, 2016 7:30 pm
GARRISON KEILLOR

... There ought to be a national holiday when we celebrate the willingness to back down, compromise, tolerate difference, get along, hush your mouth, be sweet ...

I have moments of principle. I disapprove of wearing baseball caps backward if you are older than 11, of big tattoos, of people who are like “he was like” instead of “he said” and they’re like “What?” if I am like “That sounds so stupid.” I despair of those who get their news from Twitter.

But I keep my mouth shut. Back in the mid-20th century, we in Mrs. Moehlenbrock’s fourth-grade class sang, “Oh the E-ri-e was a- risin’ and the gin was a-gettin’ low, and I scarcely think we’ll get a drink til we come to Buffalo.” And we also sang “Frankie and Johnny” with the wonderful verse, “The first time she shot him he staggered, the second time she shot him he fell. The third time there was a southwest wind from the northeast corner of hell.”

We knew it was wrong for 10-year-olds to sing about gin and homicide, it was terribly wrong, and nowadays Mrs. Moehlenbrock would be hauled in for inflicting emotional distress and we kids would go straight into therapy, but we didn’t rat on her. We liked her, wrong though it was to encourage children to drink gin. As it says in Ecclesiastes, there is a time to keep silence and a time to speak. We kept our lips zipped ...

http://www.carolinacoastonline.com/news_times/opinions/columns/article_7d3363ca-1a1f-11e6-913e-6b1172df68e4.html