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.

It's not fair. While Jon Carroll was away on vacation, he managed to do something I've been dreaming of for almost a year now, but have yet to achieve. I'm not bitter, but Jon Carroll made it on to Bill O'Reilly's enemies list. Those media types get all the breaks.

Sometimes, what with all of the frustration, anger, hatred, sin, pain, famine, war, and just plain hurt in the world, it can be easy to forget that there are occasional bright spots.

It is sometimes neccesary to seek after those bright spots just to have enough perspective to understand that the whole thing is worthwhile. To that purpose I humbly offer for your consideration... baby animals, bright sunrise on a frosty morn, the refraction of light by a prism, backrubs, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, tomatoes fresh from the vine, a genuine smile on a friend, monkey bread, happy children, La Dolce Vita, snuggling, and Jon Carroll.

Anthropologists sometimes get it wrong, in part because it's so much fun to lie to anthropologists.

How about you? Riddle me this dear reader, what things bring you uncomplicated joy?

I imagine that, in real life, Hamlet was decisive and a bit of a cutup, and Macbeth was a gentle ruler who tenderly cared for his fragile wife. ...oh and Richard III, was just a regular guy with an unlucky family.

Oh... and, Johanna.