It's important to make an effort to be kind

"Only Phineas was never afraid, only Phineas never hated anyone. Other people experienced this fearful shock somewhere, this sighting of the enemy, and so began an obsessive labor of defense, began to parry the menace they saw facing them by developing a particular frame of mind. ...

"All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way -- if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy."

-- JOHN KNOWLES, A Separate Peace, 1959

I read Knowles' wonderful novel before generations of high schoolers had to read it as an assignment. I think it must have been 1961 or maybe '62 when I discovered it, and there are few stories that have meant as much to me over the years.

If all of us -- boys, at least -- were either Finny or Gene, I don't think I knew any of the former. Nearly 60 years later, I'm still not sure I have.

He was a young man with complete confidence in himself, someone who never had to make himself feel better by making someone else feel bad. If he teased people at all, it was to encourage them to rise above themselves.

Oh, to have been a Phineas.

Oh, to have been a person who never tried to make himself feel better by making someone else feel worse.

For most of my teens and 20s, I was not a very nice person. I was the worst to my younger siblings, inventing a veritable dictionary of nicknames that were not designed to make them feel good. There is no way I can ever take any of that back.

I can try and have tried to be better.

I got a very pleasant surprise a year or so ago when I was talking on the phone with my youngest sister about an ongoing family dispute I have not really been a part of. I made some sympathetic comments and said I would try and be part of the solution after it was over.

"What a surprise that you turned out to be the kind one," she said.

I may never be Phineas, but I can be -- and am -- better than I was.

And that's something.

***

Our moral leader

If kindness -- and yes, class -- is in short supply these days, part of the problem is that people we expect to be role models are anything but.

We have always looked for our president to epitomize the best in America, to be someone who makes us proud.

Instead we have Donald Trump.

Enough said.