The Quality of Conversation

It’s been several years since I started writing and it has become one of those moments that I sincerely enjoy. I also enjoy hearing contrary opinions, particularly when it makes me think more about the particular subject that I’ve addressed. Of course, now and then I get one of those letters that attempts to “tell” me what I’m supposed to think because the reader feels they know me better than I know myself. Those are the kind that the delete key was born for. Mind you, I never mind being told “your wrong” as long as the commenter is willing to state their case. Some time ago I had one person that tried to associate my standing as a veteran as the reason I should think like them. They acknowledged that fighting for freedom gave me a right to my opinion, but somehow they simply could not accept that my opinion did not match their opinion. It happens! Those of us that were taught to think for ourselves rarely follow the crowd.

Good conversation? Getting more and more rare these days. I find too many have heavily peppered their conversation with the latest chic phrases that sound more like a broken record than original thought. Oh yes, I have a few of my own, but they tend to be the expressions of my now past family that were more popular in our little part of the world until I got out into the world and found that a few other communities used similar comments. “He’s trying to avoid looking like the South end of a North bound mule” and “Tain’t neither here nor there” and … I could go on for hours. They are not intended to show the ignorance of a farm boy but more like the simplicity of thought that gets an idea across in the fewer, less popular phrase. I particularly find it amusing to have a discussion with somebody that can’t seem to get past the last political infomercial. Ask them a more penetrating question about what they were just so authoritianly spouting and they look at you with that blank, 1,000 yard stare, trying to think of the answer that wasn’t in that commercial. Rarely are they inclined to look into the facts, they just keep blasting out the monolog, apparently hoping that I’ll join in. Sort of reminds me of that one commercial with a different spin; “Saw the movie, $25; Read the book; $45; Actually understood both and can talk about it …. Priceless!

Of course, the expression isn’t nearly as important as the thought behind the words. Being from a Southern upbringing there was a good deal of negative racial thoughts that flowed through our family and I was very much a willing participant until that afternoon a big black hand grabbed me by the neck and pulled me out of the spray of gunfire that killed two of my fellow soldiers; then later that day I watch the owner of that big black hand lay down his life for two white soldiers that had never had a kind word to say about him. The reality of what life was REALLY about set in and set in hard. That one great man had put it best; “it’s about the content of a mans character, not the color of his skin”. Good conversation, meaningful thought, in the least amount of words. Truly elegant.

So I was sitting here stewing about something someone wrote and thinking to myself that dumb hayseed don’t know “shi* from Shinola” and it stuck me and I started giggling. Here I was getting upset over a persons comment that doesn’t know beans about me so how could they ever hope to offer me constructive criticism when that final tidbit of wisdom that my old man drilled into my head a long time ago; “boy, you’ll learn a lot more if you keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut”. Yeah, that pretty well sums it up; hope they appreciate the old boys advice!