Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 6, 1995 TAG: 9511060024
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
I remember very little else from second grade, but I do remember this.
Two boys declared to me their desire to be my ``boyfriend.'' Painfully fastidious, at age 7, regarding proper behavior, I perceived a moral dilemma. I'd listened to my elders, I'd listened to rock 'n' roll love songs, and I knew one did not have two boyfriends. It just wasn't done. I had to make a choice.
I had to! It was ``the right thing to do.''
So, I did. I chose the little tough - the budding macho man with the nascent biceps. Thereby choosing against the kindly, sweet-tempered boy - the one with the nascent wisdom.
Then I told that tender boy of my choice.
And he cried.
Gentlemanly to the end, he also refused to tell the teacher why he cried. At this, I withered away in my little desk, burning with remorse.
Clearly, I'd made the wrong choice. Clearly, in this matter, any choice at all was wrong. It was even unnecessary. How sadly ``received wisdom'' failed me! The rock 'n' roll songs gave no warning of this - that mistakes could be made and honest feelings be hurt.
I remember nothing else of my second-grade ``courtship.'' I doubt there's anything else to remember. How could there be?
But I fear that, to this day, that tender-hearted boy remembers the rejection as well as I. Because don't we all remember our painful moments so much more clearly than we remember our joys or our triumphs?
Even now, my heart sinks when I think of that boy's tearful face, his awful struggle not to cry in public; when I think of the way I realized too late the certain consequences of silly, ``obligatory'' action.
I could go on. Indeed, I could regale you with every mistake of this sort that I've made over the course of my life. A not-so-little list of them is burned into my conscience.
You, no doubt, have a similar list burned in your conscience, too. Even as we speak, the children we know are silently writing their lists. And our elders preserve, in their depths, in their dreams, great volumes.
Lately, reminded by second grade, I've been going over my list in my mind. And I find that most of the items recorded there, like this one, could be footnoted thus: ``might have been avoided if you'd followed your heart instead of the `should's' and the `ought's' in the air at the time.''
You know what I'm talking about. All those societal ``rules'' embedded in every ad, every song, every video game and movie, every television show, every comic strip, every news report or conversation with friends.
Why must a 7-year-old have only one boyfriend? Why must anyone? Why are the tough kids, the ones who'll surely mean trouble, so often the more alluring?
Why must anyone get ahead, pay his own way, pull her own weight, make a difference? Is it really certain that, in any situation, the best defense is a good offense? Does the punishment ever truly fit the crime? Is that even a reasonable goal?
I learned one thing in second grade - a lesson I have to keep learning again, it's true, but one that's worth that effort, and more: Question received wisdom. Question authority. Question its source, question its motives, question its basic goodness.
And then, follow your heart.
Remember this tomorrow, as you go to the polls.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times columnist.
by CNB