David CookIt was Saturday, a Halle Berry of an afternoon. I was piddling in the backyard. My retired neighbor was grilling burgers, that charcoal scent filling the air like the springtime version of Vatican incense.
We met by the fence. Started talking about the weather, then politics, then recent headlines in the newspaper, when my neighbor said this:
“Why don’t you try something good?”
And I thought to myself: He’s right. Bull’s-eye right. There’s not enough good in the news. Too often, I fall into the rut of only writing about what’s wrong with the world instead of looking for what’s right with it, like a game of I-Spy gone lopsided. Sure, there’s plenty of terrible horribleness lurking around out there, but man does not live on bad news alone. We need the good too, maybe more so.
So I looked him in the eye. Made a solemn backyard promise. Told him my next column would be just about the good things in life. The sweetness. The dappled joy.