This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

Leave it to my friend Sam Skillern to write a note that strikes a positive chord with me – and should for a lot of other people.

Skillern, executive director of the Salem Leadership Foundation, put it this way:

“Lotta people making fun of Theodore Cleaver these days.  In fact, some folks downright loathe him and the iconic 1957-63 television show Leave it to Beaver.
 
“The knock is that the Cleaver family and mid-century America represented harmful values.  The parents of Mayfield over-dressed and the kids were goody-two-shoes in a sugar-coated era of white, middle-class privilege.  A time period famously parodied in the 1998 film Pleasantville.
 
“No era is perfect.  It’s true there was racism, sexism, vain facades of affluence, and economic inequities in the 1950s and 1960s.  But, unfortunately, that’s true of every era.  It’s true today.
 
“While conceding that the Leave-it-Beaver world had its flaws, there’s one thing that stands out.  Something that’s sorely scarce these days.  
 
“Decency.

“Simple things, like opening doors or carrying groceries.  Saying ‘good morning’ or ‘good afternoon’ even to strangers.  Bringing meals when a neighbor is sick.  

“Innocence and modesty around life’s rites of passage.  Striving to share a kind word of encouragement … and lip-biting to refrain from shaming or offending.  (Today, trash talking is not only tolerated, it’s celebrated.)
 
“A closer look at Beaver’s world shows more than cotton-candy manners and pollyanna.  Remember the episode where the Beav convinces his Dad to hire the homeless drifter to paint the house?  Or when Wally confronts Eddie Haskell’s cruel bullying?  When the plot wrestled with, rather than laughed at, domestic abuse and alcoholism?  The show actually pushed the envelope in its day.
 
“Again, this isn’t a defense of the prejudice, sexism and injustice that existed then.  And I’m not saying we should go back to everything in that day. 

“How about decency?  A desire for truthfulness, kindness, hard work, sacrifice, a clean tongue, respect for elders, consequences (and forgiveness) for bad decisions, abiding by the rules, faith in God and each other … man, do I sound like an old fuddy-duddy?  But why would these simple virtues be considered obsolete, prudish and mockable? 
 
“In a world where the mottos seem to be ‘You can’t tell me what to do,’ ‘It’s not my fault,’ and ‘I’m entitled,’ … a return to simple decency might actually be the cure for what ails us.”

Skillern, by his selfless work in the Salem-Keizer community over the years, has earned the right to be heard.  More than enough.

So, he has a very valid point.

Let simple decency prevail.  It would solve a lot of problems that appear unsolvable today.

And, just think about how simple decency would upend the current state of politics in this country where both sides – or all sides – appear to hate each other.