I’ve been putting off writing this column until the last minute—almost until I am physically unable to write it. (That would be an excellent method of avoidance, but I know it won’t work two months in a row.) I am beset by thoughts that do not cease swarming in my brain because I do not shout them from my porch at passers-by or post them vehemently on Facebook. I hold them close until they turn toxic—yet the relief of passing out does not come. They are unpopular notions among those enlightened persons I am privileged to call my friends. However, some people I know seem to share them.
I refrain from uttering what I feel to be true and incontrovertible not because I dread open scorn, obloquy, or even what some refer to as “cancellation.” From where I sit, cancellation, like death, begins to look like a sabbatical. I was “cancelled” in my own hometown a quarter-century ago. I could not stop saying what I thought. The upshot was that my Rabelaisian wisecracks no longer had an audience. I had ripped out my filter and stomped on it publicly. Persona non Grata status followed. I will forever be known to those of a certain age here as “that guy who used to write those letters to the editor.”
Now that I am the editor, I fear to dislodge that which infects me with bellyaches—which are getting worse. No, it’s that I’ve gotten used to this gig, and the positive feedba
