Vent, Vent, Vent

Over and above the temperate temps today, we got to go to supper at church today and it was nice to see a lot of our friends and talk with them again. The spaghetti and sauce was nice and I enjoyed the sweet tea and brownies with ice cream. I had to leave with Cindy early and she got cramps in her feet until I could run her home and hand her a a jar of pickle juice. That finally got her on to her feet so I could run to Ingles and purchase some stuff for her for tomorrow.

Now, a time to vent. I realize that when I graduated from high school that I was not an appropriate candidate, probably, for most Ivy League schools. I didn't apply, even though my friend, Graham, Harvard Class of 79, thought I should apply. Heck, I think he thought that everyone should apply to Harvard.

But I didn't want to go to Harvard. I think most people thought I made an appropriate choice when I went to Washington and Lee. Fine institution, good academic reputation, tied into all that Southern history with George Washigton, Robert E. Lee, etc. Most of my friends and family thought it was the perfect place for me.

There is no perfect place for any student necessarily. And no institution has a fix on truth, even if Harvard has 'veritas' on their crest. That is about as pompous as the "Yay, Sewanee's Right" on the stadium at Sewanee. When I was a child, we had nine white male justices on the Supreme Court. Later, one African-American held a seat on the court. But the men who were there were from California, Virginia, Alabama, Ohio, Washington, etc. Despite the fact that they were all men, they were quite diverse in their upbringing and origins.

But now they all seem to be from the Ivy League and most of them are Catholic or Jewish. In our efforts to be more diverse, we have packed the court with Ivy Leaguers. I know those schools are fine colleges and universities, but they don't hold the only key to truth.

We need a real open market place of ideas to work our way out of this mess. Easy answers and slogans and simplified responses to issues won't make it. It is more complicated and the answers which will probably work will be have to be much more thoughtful and broad in scope and will require more compromise and working together.