A General MacArthur Moment

For those of you concerned over where I have been the past couple months I must explain. To put it very simply … I was abducted by aliens from the planet Liberal 3. It is a planet 47 billion light years from Earth and is populated almost entirely by females. They keep a few males around for amusement and to ensure controlled re-population.

My return to Earth was made possible when they discovered I am at an age where I should just shed my huevos and grow new teeth. I was not appreciated for my charm, good looks and brain nor my ability to “void-off” 90 percent of the readership of The Glasgow Courier.

I would like to thank all of you who showed your support for Thanks for Listening with your e-mails, snail mails, phone calls, letters to the editor and face-to-face meetings. One well respected Glasgow business woman wrote in a card “I am sorry for all the mistreatment, finger-pointing and pack mentality that has come your way.”

Thanks to David, Howard, Andy and Brian for daring to show your support through your letters to the editor. That was bravery above and beyond and the following short story is why I say that.

I was having B&G at my favorite biscuit and gravy place and looking forward to a dessert of an Izzy Cake when a guy furtively approached my table showing a great deal of nervousosity. He said, “May I sit?” I said, “Sure, please do.”

He said, “You don’t know me but I read your columns and have always wanted to write a LTE in support of what you write. I don’t always agree but I appreciate your style.”

I took a bite of biscuit, washed it down with a slurp of coffee and waited for the other shoe to drop, all the while thinking, “Is this guy Horace”? (Turns out it wasn’t.)

Again he glanced all around like a KGB spy and then continued. “If I were to show my support for some of your writings through a public LTE my wife of over 30 years would strip me of what little masculinity she has allowed me to keep.”

My first thought was, “Yikes! … You’ve come a long way, baby!”

His statement was uttered through clenched teeth and with so much emotion I just knew he wasn’t joking as so many men do when discussing such husband/wife things.

You know what I mean fellas. You tell your best friend, “I’d like to go fishing tomorrow but if I did my wife would have me sleeping on a cot in the garage for the next month.”

But, I digress.

With political correctness on everyone’s agenda it is getting tougher and tougher to write about anything without stepping on someone’s feelings.

I’ve heard from more than one college student who said it was getting harder to concentrate on academic classes because the ivied halls of higher education are becoming so PC that it’s becoming virtually impossible to hold a conversation without being politically incorrect or, my favorite word these days, “inappropriate.” And that’s where a writer gets into trouble.

It’s the same old saying: “The truth hurts.”

That’s it for now, folks.

Thanks for listening.