Do Not Interrupt by Stephen Kuusisto

Author:Stephen Kuusisto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sterling
Published: 2010-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

four

Free and Easy

After the exercises which the health

of the body requires, and which have

themselves a natural tendency to actuate

and invigorate the mind, the most eligible

amusement of a rational being seems to

be that interchange of thoughts which is

practised in free and easy conversation;

where suspicion is banished by experience,

and emulation by benevolence; where every

man speaks with no other restraint than

unwillingness to offend, and hears with no

other disposition than desire to be pleased.

—Samuel Johnson: Rambler

#89 (January 22, 1751)

When I think of Samuel Johnson’s words above and in particular the phrase “where suspicion is banished by experience, and emulation by benevolence; where every man speaks with no other restraint than unwillingness to offend, and hears with no other disposition than desire to be pleased,” I remember an early conversation with my father.

Back when I was about eight years old my dad gave me a hatchet and, like any sensible eight-year-old boy, I went out in the backyard and methodically cut down a newly planted, decorative fruit tree, which of course took a long time since it was still green under the bark. When my dad confronted me about the matter I said, “I’m no George Washington. Hoodlums stole my hatchet!” This of course became a family slogan of sorts. When my mother backed our station wagon into a parked oil truck she simply told my dad that hoodlums stole the car. When my younger sister got caught smoking cigarettes in junior high, it was hoodlums who made her do it. As near as I can recall, my conversation with my father went something like this:

Me: “I am not George Washington. Hoodlums cut down this tree.”

Father: “Really? My word! Whatever did they look like?”

Me: “They were wrapped in onion-skin typing paper but I don’t know why.”

Father: “Were they tall or short, thin or fat? Maybe we can send out a posse.”

Me: “Thin. They were trying to look big with all that typing paper. I think they were hungry hoodlums.”

Father: “But if they were hungry why cut down a sapling without fruit?”

Me: “I think they were planning to eat the leaves.”

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