Monday, February 19, 2018

BENJI President Calvin Coolidge was understood to be a man of notoriously few words. Readers Digest records a story of a young woman who had the opportunity to sit near the President at a party. She remarked to President Coolidge that she had a bet going with her friends that she would be able to draw out of him three words of conversation. The aptly named President coolly responded: You lose. For some of us, me included, being a person of fewer words may not be a bad thing. We have all experienced how wrong the schoolyard cliché is: “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Words do hurt! They can cause serious harm to the ones they are aimed at as well as those who get in trouble because of what we say. This week, let’s endeavor to make sure our brains are engaged before putting our mouth in motion, so we can say to those who bet we will put our foot in our mouth, “You lose!”