WHAT'S THE BACK SEAT GOT TO DO WITH IT?

This is as good a time as any....!

To unmask us. To look into who we really are. While we love the bold, tall-in-the-saddle legend of yesterday's Old West, we really live the careful, safe-in-my-own-room hope of today's mortgaged home. We respond to John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, but spend more of our time talking to our banker or insurance agent.

Celebrated journalist H.L. Mencken snarled it best when he scoffed at our cowboy mythology of roaming the free range: "Given a choice between security and liberty, most of us will always choose security."

To test the old skeptic's indictment, consider. We spend two weeks of the year engaged in the liberty of colorful vacations. The other 50 we pay our bills on time, put on our seat belts, check our tires, take our vitamins, watch our blood pressure, bring our umbrellas, install security systems, review our 401Ks, and always lock the doors.

Not really hypocrisy. Common sense. Common sense drew Neanderthals to caves, soldiers into foxholes, and Charlie Brown into this piece of advice to Lucy: "You know what security is...? It's being a kid falling asleep late at night in the back seat of the car coming home with your parents from a long day...." Lucy looked puzzled. Charlie explained. "...and then waking up all tucked safe in your own bed...!"

Lucy reflected. Then grew somber. "But wait...! That means...?" Charlie frowned in wise assent. "Yep...that means it'll never ever be like that again...!"

While Charlie and Lucy have never grown up, we eventually did. Accepting with our adulthood all its innate pleasures and pain. However, do you ever fall asleep in the back seat of the car...? Hoping just a little that someone could still tuck you in bed...? Well, here's a secret. Bankers and insurance agents, presidents and prime ministers, idols and idiots still do too.