Battles with Integrity

One of the things I like best about Carroll's writing is that he seems to capture a whimsy and delight in small moments that appeals to me in a special way.

I like his political columns and his travel stuff, but sometimes it's the family pieces that I really dig most of all.

Here's an excerpt from today's column

I also came upon a piece of prose. I think I wrote it when Rachel was 6. I read it again, and it made me smile. So, now, here, for the first time ever in print, a rediscovered manuscript by a popular newspaper columnist, absolutely complete and unedited:

My daughter peered around the end of the sofa. She waved two fingers at me. "Put your hands up," she said.

I put my hands up.

"Shoot," she said, indicating the accomplishment of the act. No one had taught her to say "bang bang" yet.

"No, honey," I said, "you don't shoot people with their hands up. You make a deal with people" - my daughter knows all about making deals - "that if they'll put their hands up you'll promise not to shoot them."

"Why?"

"Because people with their hands up can't reach their guns in their holsters, and that means they can't hurt you. So you can't shoot them. See?"

She was silent. Finally: "You can't shoot people with their hands up?"

"That's right."

"Put your hands down."

I put my hands down.

"Shoot," she said.

Just beautiful.