Years ago we took off for a Willie concert in Little Rock but ended up in Texas. It was because one of us had a piercing winter chest cold. Warmth from the sun penetrated the windshield and was so hearty we couldn’t stop heading directly southwest, so we didn’t.
Shortly after qualifying for a $100 speeding ticket in Stringtown, Okla., we crossed the Red River into Texas while listening to “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain” on cassette.
On the side of the highway was a Texas-sized billboard that said Drive Friendly, and we thought that sign was so appropriate and civil and righteous we wrote its message on the visor. We wish it had said Drive Like You’re on Horseback, but this was Texas, unfamiliar to me except by reputation. My dad or his dad said if there were ever an earthquake in Texas they’d shoot it until it died.
For who knows why, that sign came to mind this week. We are watching the end of civility and have no idea what to do about it. It’s like having emotional anorexia. You can’t think or stop thinking. Must we choose between injustice and rebellion? Must we have persistent time-stealing side-choosing? Must we wish we could go to Canada and borrow a cup of president?
We were sitting under the hackberry in Busch last Saturday afternoon drinking very, very cold, delicious beer, and one woman said, “When have you ever heard of a law regulating men’s bodies?”
And it was on. No one, not even the men, had an answer to anything until we remembered an acquaintance in Fayetteville who was once press secretary for Daniel Patrick Moynihan. DPM was from Tulsa, so we loved him without knowing him, but he once said, “When people have contempt for government, they will get contemptible government.”
And the billboard, the chest cold, the beer, the hackberry, Willie, and practical, local politics, all made sense because we know we don’t all agree on everything but we have a lot in common. And we know we don’t have to be unkind to anyone unless we want to be.
And we know that Drive Friendly applies to more situations than driving.