I was driving home late last Saturday night on I-75.  No one to
talk with.  Susan literally had fallen into a deep sleep before we got out
of the hotel parking lot.  Thank goodness for our energy drinks and some
stirring words I heard at a business meeting in Ocala.  Something someone
said kept churning inside and keeping me from being mesmerized by the
boring ribbon of concrete and the hypnotic rhythm of the approaching
headlights.  My mind was racing as fast as the car.  Try I struggled to
figure out what it was, I couldn't put my finger on it.  It didn't begin
to become apparent until I was almost on the exit ramp at Valdosta.  It
was still too vague.  Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday
afternoon as I had coffee with some colleagues whom I deeply admire.
And, an obituary written by Richard Cohen into today's WASHINGTON POST,
made it all so crystal clear.

        We all want to succeed.  We all want to get that appointment;  we
all want to get that promotion; we all want to get that tenure; we all
want to get that research grant; we all want to get that raise; we all
want to get that publication; we all want to get that recognition; we all
want to get that reputation; we all want to get that .....

        We all want to live well; we all want to do well.  But, if we
don't do good as well, well, what good is all that living and doing well?
I have found that all that getting and all that living well and all that
doing well, will never be good enough.  Doing well puts the focus on our
ambition, on our self-interest, on the confines of the classroom, on the
limits of the subject matter, and on making a living.  And, if we're not
careful, doing well can make us into what I call "short lookers" and
"short hearers."

        These colleagues are intent on doing good--truly doing good.
They know that doing good focuses our vision beyond ourselves, on the
needs and interests of others, beyond the boundaries of classroom and
subject, and on having a good life.  They may not put it into these words,
but they know that doing good can make us into what I call "long see-ers"
and "long listeners."

        By coincidence, sometimes you don't ask, Richard Cohen's obituary
column of his father appeared in today's WASHINGTON POST. I copied bits
and pieces of it.  He wrote about his father, "He was the most ordinary of
men--but God, I have known few like him and neither have you....he was a
good man.  Not once--not ever--did I know him to cheat:  not in business,
not on his wife, not on his friends and never on his children....The great
men I have spent a lifetime around--the politicians, the statesmen, the
rich, the powerful, the creative--can make no such claim.  They always say
they had to break some eggs to make their omelet.  My father made no
omelet.  But he broke no eggs, either....He had his dreams, but the
overriding one was to lead an honorable life....He did not set standards,
he lived them....He was, I tell you, the most extraordinary of ordinary
men, what in Yiddish is called a 'mensch'---not a great man but, much
rarer still, a good one. There is nothing greater."


Make it a good day.

                                                       --Louis--


Louis Schmier                            www.therandomthoughts.com
Department of History                    www.halcyon.com/arborhts/louis.html
Valdosta State University
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