OPINION

STEVE STRASSLE: The Strenuous Life - Arkansas allegory

The young man ran out of gas somewhere between Cave City and Ash Flat. He had just graduated from college and was heading to a job interview in Missouri when it happened. The gas gauge on his old Honda Accord had broken years before, but he thought he had a good feel for the gas left in the tank.

He managed to steer the car off U.S. 167 and onto a dirt road where he had seen an Exxon sign through the trees. The Exxon sign was there, but the station had long been abandoned. He started walking down that road, hoping to find a house and some help. There was no cell service.

After 40 minutes and more than two miles of walking, he found a small, tidy shack surrounded by hundred-foot pine trees. The whitewashed home had large steps leading up to a small porch, and they creaked as he climbed them. He hoped he wouldn't be shot or attacked by dogs. As he crept, a voice called from behind.

"Hello there, young man."

The college graduate turned to see an old man, a caricature of a hillbilly with his dirty overalls, thick work boots and flannel shirt with pipe tobacco stuffed in the pocket. His gray beard had flecks of seeds and ash throughout. Great, the young man thought. I've walked to Dogpatch.

"Hello, sir. I'm sorry to bother you. I've run out of gas," the young man said as he looked to a detached garage with a 1950s-model Chevy pickup inside.

The old man held out his hand. "Roscoe. Roscoe Tweed," he said.

"Ben," the college boy answered. And they shook hands warmly.

"Nice to meet you, Ben. I'm happy to take you down the road to get some gas. My lunch is almost ready and you're welcome to eat, then we'll hit the road."

Ben started to beg off but then felt his stomach growl at the smell of food on the stove. He nodded and the old man motioned for him to grab a seat on a porch step while he scampered inside. In moments, he returned with steaming plates of rice and beans and sat down next to Ben. They ate a few bites sitting side by side in silence.

Ben looked around at the tall pines and the immaculate shack. He took in the smell of honeysuckle and musk. The breeze lifted the corn stalks and muscadine leaves in the well-tended garden away in a pasture. "Nice place," he said. Roscoe nodded.

Ben, strengthened by the food and slightly intoxicated by the beauty of the country, continued, "You have it figured out, Mr. Tweed. Staying away from all the noise of the world out here in the sticks. The country has gone crazy. I'm going to run away from it all like you someday."

Roscoe took a bite of food and looked into his pasture. "Run away from it all? No, son, you need to run to it all. Your generation is going to fix things if you get your heads out of the sand."

Ben-the-college-grad snorted. The hillbilly blamed his generation?

Roscoe Tweed continued, "Snort all you want but you won't fix things by snorting. Your generation is a good one--anyone can see that. You don't need to run away from it, you need to make a stand. But I see you youngsters, and your parents for that matter, settling for being comfortably informed."

"Comfortably informed?" Ben said.

"Comfortably informed," Roscoe confirmed. "Comfortably informed means you allow only for news, conversations, and folks that reinforce your beliefs. It's different from fully informed, which is when you allow for news and conversations that challenge your beliefs. That's where problems get solved. That's where you understand the other guy. That's how the mess gets fixed. I had to learn that part myself."

Ben started to protest but couldn't find the words. Roscoe said, "I read an article not too long ago about these cable news shows, how the most partisan channels have seen their ratings soar. You see? Too many of our countrymen aren't looking for news, they're looking for opinions that match their own. That's dangerous. Opinion becomes news and then becomes fact."

Ben sat in awkward silence. Mr. Tweed, with his thick Arkansas accent, lectured more like a college professor than an old man living on a secluded dirt road.

"Step one," Tweed said between mouthfuls, "Dialogue."

"When I played baseball at Vanderbilt, we had a coach who wouldn't let an argument between players brew. He'd set us right there in the middle of the field at a table with two chairs and tell us we ain't leaving until we work things out. Whoa-boy, I once sat there hours with a pitcher who I thought was trying to bean me. We glared at each other until finally it got hot enough to where we started talking.

"Turns out, he wasn't trying to bean me, he just let one get away and didn't want to tell the coach he threw so wild. Dialogue. Without that coach, we would have been mad at each other and cussing behind each other's backs and it would have torn the team apart." Roscoe sipped some tea. "And that's how our country is right now. Folks are burying their heads. Yes, you have to stand for your core beliefs, but no, you don't ever have to hate the other guy. "

Ben nodded at the sense he was making. Roscoe put his plate aside and said, "The wall the president wants to build is nothing compared to the ones we've built around our political, religious, and social beliefs. That's what I mean by your head is in the sand."

Wiping his mouth, the old man said, "Now, let's go get that car filled up."

Ben replied, "You know, I'm in no real rush."

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Steve Straessle, whose column appears every other Saturday, is the principal of Little Rock Catholic High School for Boys. You can reach him at sstraessle@lrchs.org. Roscoe and Ben exist only in Steve's mind, but he's sure he's met them somewhere.

Editorial on 11/03/2018

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