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8A, DAILY JOURNAL SAtURDAY • AUgUSt 17, 2019
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We could use a hearty dose of Robert Ful-ghum wisdom about now.
Our political discourse is at a fever pitch. Our allegedly esteemed elected leaders are carrying on like unruly children – shouting and pouting and be-coming increasingly strident with their political opponents.,
If they wish to carry on like children, they need to learn some kindergarten wisdom.
“All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kinder-garten,” wrote Robert Fulghum in his famous 1988 essay, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten.”
“Share everything,” he writes.Too few of us realize it, but we
share many things. Most of all, we share a magnificent representa-tive republic – and every one of us shares the incredible responsi-bility of running it by voting and participating in public discourse.
Our politicians must embrace our shared responsibility by discussing and debating politi-cal ideas civilly – by working out
political agreements as well-man-nered adults.
“Play fair,” writes Fulghum.In sports, nobody likes a “dirty”
player – someone who hits below the belt, or someone who tries to knock the quarterback out of the game by ramming a helmet into his knee.
Attempts to destroy or dis-credit political opponents with hyperbole and unsubstantiated accusations only lather up half the country as they alienate the other half. Such cynical dishones-ty drives us apart, making it that much harder for us to arrive at orderly, sensible solutions.
If you disagree with some-one’s political ideas, discuss that disagreement in a logical and unemotional manner. If you be-lieve your idea is superior, make your case. That’s the only way for our best political ideas to become
effective government policies, and goodness knows we have too few of those.
“Don’t hit people” is another of Fulghum’s insights.
Unfounded cheap shots have got to stop.,
Calling someone a “racist” or a “Nazi” just because you dislike him or her or disagree with his or her ideas does more to discredit those overused labels than it does to discredit your target.
Chanting for a member of Con-gress – a naturalized U.S. citizen – to be “sent back” to the country where she was born, just because you strongly disagree with her ideas, lowers and discredits you as it elevates the target of your chant.
We are better than this – at least I hope we are.
Fulghum offers a dozen other useful insights in his essay, but these words are probably the most important:
“Live a balanced life,” he writes. “Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.”
Look, politics is important
– keeping informed and partici-pating in our political system is essential to our country’s con-tinued success – but too many of us are taking our politics way too personally.
As we become ever more bois-terous in our discourse – as we post ever-more angry and ridic-ulous thoughts on social media – we motivate the politicians who represent us to do likewise.
All of us need to stop taking ourselves so seriously. All of us need to escape the narrowness of our limited point of view.
As Fulghum advises, we need to spend more time drawing and painting and singing and danc-ing. We need to play and laugh and stop taking ourselves, and our politics, so seriously.
Perhaps if we heed a little kindergarten wisdom, we will remember how to be civil, well-mannered adults.
With any luck, our politicians will follow suit.
TOM PURCELL is a Pittsburgh Tri-bune-Review humor columnist and is nationally syndicated. Readers can contact him at [email protected].
OPIN
ION M
y son just started his freshman year of high school, and so far he hasn’t been stuffed in a
locker or given a wedgie. Or if he has, he hasn’t told me.
I was stuffed in a locker in ninth grade – by my older sister and her friends. It was a tight fit, but I was skinny back then, so it wasn’t too bad.
This actually happened during band camp. I was happily snoozing when my sister and her fellow tormentors woke me up early on a Saturday and dragged me to Ruston High School with a handful of my classmates.
They made us march on the practice field and do a few other things that I can’t recall, but I largely refused to participate in their shenanigans. So they stuck me in a locker and then gave me a pacifier because I was being a “big baby.”
I was honestly pretty proud of myself.
What I learned from that hazing is that I was just a grumpy curmudgeon. Not many kids can figure out who they are by age 14. I was lucky.
My freshman year wasn’t that bad, really. I was on the drumline and earned a spot playing snare, and I got to march in the Super-dome when our football team went to the state championship (and won).
I also played on the freshman basketball team, which wasn’t as fun as I hoped it would be. It was never boring, though.
We were a group of misfits who during one game caused our coach to snap his clipboard in half in the locker room. Even at my young age, I could see Coach
Newcomb was questioning his life choices.
We started the season with 17 or 18 players, but through attri-tion – players quitting or being dismissed – we got down to six toward season’s end. And I was the sixth man.
Never has a bench felt so lone-ly. I took the hint and stuck with drumming.
The most fun part of that expe-rience was practice. We would stretch with the JV and varsity players, and one of the guys leading warmups was Scotty Thurman.
You might remember him. He went on to play for Arkansas and hit the game-winning shot in the 1994 NCAA tournament champi-onship game.
Scotty was a hilarious person. It was already hard enough touching my toes without him making me wheeze with laugh-ter.
My freshman year is also when
I finally convinced my mother to let me grow out my hair. That’s right, I had a mullet.
Look, it was 1990, when bad hair was still in fashion. My mullet, however, did not look as good as I’d hoped it would. The ladies did not swoon. It is one of my greatest regrets in life.
And yes, there is photo evi-dence of that hideous hair-do, because we took family portraits at Olan Mills, like, every stinkin’ year.
But, like I said, my freshman year was good on the whole. Un-fortunately, the rest of my high school experience was less than optimal, and I would just as soon forget most of it.
It’s not that adulthood has been a breeze, but at least no-body has tried to stuff me in a locker. Yet.
BRAD LOCKE is senior sports writer for the Daily Journal. Contact him on Twitter @bradlocke or email him at [email protected].
DAILY
Our childish politicians need kindergarten lessons
Tom
Purcell
Thinking back on lockers, bad hair and Scotty Thurman
Brad
Locke
