A BIGGER BEN
I often wonder if Ole Ben Franklin actually said all the fine things he is credit with having said, or “blamed for” if his often odd way of seeing ordinary things as some uncommon way irks you at times.
He could always blame any troublesome quips on “Poor Richard”, of course. I wonder, too, how his friends viewed him, as a wise cracking busybody or perhaps as a old curmudgeon who was forever examining everything they considered normal and seeing abnormalities therein. Worse yet, finding good in what they were throwing away as useless, and forever talking about whatever it was we were doing wrong.
We need to fashion a bigger slot for Ben - or someone like him - in our lives today. We need to see, hear and revere the Bigger Ben.
For instance, right now when we are going in and out of series of small wars with enemies most of us never heard of before they became our nemesis. Ben once said: “'There is no small enemy.” We have had to learn that in recent decades as we have seen petty, local officials and their military minions take over various parts of the world. The conflicts seem “small” but loom large as they go along. Think about such names as Gadafi, Noriego, Taylor, and a half-dozen other around the world.
Did we, or do we, tend to misjudge our intent from time to time?
Ben Franklin also advised us to : “Beware of a young doctor or an old barber.” We have to make choice in our selection of people to represent us our republic form of democracy, and we do have to choose, quite often, from new doctors who have never even heard of specific troubles we might experience, and older trimmers and cutters who are “sot in their ways” and have not kept up with the latest modes. What guides us in making such selections?
Through the centuries mankind has turned to the mysterious world of maxims, adages. Proverbs, statements and sayings by men and women who have walked this path; lived this life before.
Ben Franklin was such a mentor and, closer to our own time, Will Rogers may be said to have filled that need, and their have been others, as well. True enough,much of what they said may seem far-fetched; even contrived, but it serves to edge me around to asking who might be said to be fulfilling the Ben Franklin-Will Roger role in our culture today?
Andy Rooney, maybe? Anyone else?
We need such a guide and critic.
A.L.M. October 3, 2003 [c463wds]
