Editor,

I recently had lunch with a friend, a lady friend. No occasion, just two friends getting together to catch up and share a meal. During the course of our encounter, the conversation turned to politics? Can you imagine, in our current political environment friends talking about politics. As it turned out, one of us professed to be liberal and the other conservative. Not to an extreme in either case, just a leaning.

With eyes wide open, we both agreed to the conversation. The ground rules were that we would take individual political issues, we would each express our view and then we would move on to the next. We talked about everything we could think of that stirs political fires: abortion, “the wall,” birth control, gay rights, gun control, Muslims, crime and punishment, the military, entitlements, etc. The amazing thing is, we had very similar views on all but one issue. No one screamed or shouted, no one lit a garbage can on fire, there was no slander, no threats, no broken windows, no lines drawn in the sand, and we parted friends. When the event had run its course, we smiled, hugged and agreed to do it again.

I think my friend would agree, it was good. Could there be a moral here?

RON SHELMAN

Langley