I read Sam Cook’s thoughtful column today with interest. I don’t usually read his columns because I don’t hunt and I rarely fish but I like Sam’s style. Back when I had a mustache I’d have people confuse me with him much to my amusement. I thought it was funny partly because we both got our start in Kansas although we both mostly lost our drawls ages ago.
If I were where Sam is I’d probably have written much the same column. I’m not however so I’ll have to hew to all the posts I’ve put in this blog going back to the Ice Age. I would guess that Sam heard from his Kansas mother what my Kansas mother told me on several occasions as I was growing up. “It takes two to have a fight.”
There is an important corollary to this rustic old saying and that is – It takes two to end a quarrel.
As Loren Martell makes clear – our quarrel is a donnybrook.
For my part I tell anyone who will listen that our situation reminds me of an old African proverb: “When elephants fight the grass gets trampled.”
In this case the grass is the 24 bright young high school students Sam met in an English composition class. I hope that our two sides remain mindful of the grass below our big stumpy feet.
