I have from time to time in this blog expressed amazement that the officials in our country do not take more care to think before they speak. It is not that I am without blame there myself. I especially remember an incident in the early 70s when I was sharing an apartment in a Marin County California town. My roommate and I were longhaired, bell-bottomed, peace-loving, and some other things that I will not offer here - characteristics that were in those days associated with hippies. There was a young man in a neighboring apartment of similar character, whose name I forget. It may have been Tom, but I'm not certain. Whatever, we called him "The Hippie."
The Hippie was an artist working in stained glass. He rode a bicycle everywhere he went, and he had one eye that looked straight out to the right. It was his right eye. Or maybe it was his left eye that looked straight out to the left. At any rate, he had one eye that tracked 90 degrees from the other eye.
One day, The Hippie was in our apartment, and he and my roommate were discussing an actor named Jack Elam. I said the name sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. They began to try to jog my memory, describing him as a burly man who played mostly cowboy rolls. A lightbulb went off in my head, and I said, "Oh, yeah! The guy with the gouch eye." The room became dangerously quiet as the two of them stared at me (The Hippie with just one of his eyes), nodding slowly and slightly, while I tried to pretend that no faux pas had been uttered.
But then, I was not a practiced public official, and was probably stoned.
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