In An Often Cruel World, Peaceful Ordinariness Is To Be Savored

Here on this street, we have less interest in war crimes and criminals than, say, in a furtive romance between a president and an intern, or the machinations of Richard Nixon. Those are good stories, like the beheading of John, whereas the slaughter of 100,000 is a statistic. You wish people got angry about cruelty, and not many do.

E.g., the man on the freeway last Friday, offended because I merged in front of him, who pulled up alongside me and lowered his window and screamed, his face contorted with rage. He followed me up the exit ramp and pulled alongside and yelled some more, red-faced, finger in the air.

I wish he could spare some rage for Dick Cheney, but off he went, and maybe he felt mortified for being an idiot and hoped that nobody he knew was watching, and maybe his tantrum purged him of anger, so that when he pulled up in his driveway on this quiet street and his children ran out to greet him, he felt an even more extravagant love for them. I can imagine this.

When my green Volvo with the Al Franken bumper sticker swung into the gap ahead of him, it was the final insult in a long chain and he was enraged and for a minute, maybe two or three, he sincerely wanted to shoot me and put my head on a platter, but he didn't. He cruised on home, penitent, and spoke gently to his children. He kissed his wife tenderly. He changed out of his suit and tie and picked up a hoe and went out to cultivate around the flower beds along the front sidewalk and water the juniper bushes.

Thank you, sir, for your uplifting yard. It is magnificent. Your moment of public ugliness is forgiven. Go and screech no more.

Garrison Keillor's column appears regularly in The Baltimore Sun. His e-mail is [e-mail].