I’m entitled to my own opinions but maybe I could keep them to myself … or could I???

Maybe it’s time to quit blogging.

I’ve heard it said that opinions (which I spew out constantly) are like rear ends. Everyone has one and they all stink.

I’m not sure why I have so many opinions and why I have this compulsion to give them out.

In my mind, even though I have opinions, I feel that I respect those of others (except from the likes of Rush Limberger) and I often allow in my writings that I am not even totally convinced mine are correct.

The only thing that I can come up with as to why I have all these opinions is that I was raised in a strange environment as a child in which all the TV news seeped into me in a kind of osmosis fashion. For several years my next oldest brother and I slept in a bedroom that doubled as the family’s TV room. And each morning my mom would turn on the Today Show.

I used to watch the Huntley-Brinkley newscast every night too.

Later, instead of reading comic books I devoured Time Magazine.

My father was a newspaperman too. But I think I got more of my interest in current events from my mother. At 98 she is still a fan. She takes in CNN as much as she can.

In school I was passable in most subjects – math was my weak area – but I automatically excelled in what was called social studies (history, geography, civics).

I eventually obtained a four-year college degree in Political Science for the sole reason that it was the path of least resistance, since it came so easy to me.

But alas I have found that all this opinion stuff has not made me happy nor has it made those around me happy.

Opinions. Everyone has them but….

 P.s.

I’ve been told I am not the world’s best listener. While I know that is true, it is ironic that I spent some 15 years as a journalist scrawling out copious notes in my own cumbersome form of shorthand (using 4 for for or four, or a ? for the word what or the word question(ed), that kind of thing) and poring over them and trying to get into my stories a goodly sample of what everyone said (covering all sides – there are usually more than two sides, if that makes sense).

P.s. P.s.

I recall an unsuccessful and bitterly disappointed candidate for California governor once saying: “you won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more”. Uh, he did come back (and got kicked around again after doing some kicking of his own). I do go on.

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