Letter from Waldo Johnston

Johnston: No More Limericks

Some of you will be pleased and others may be disappointed that I will not be submitting any more limericks to “The Freeman’s Journal.” Those of you who read my first entries will recall that my goals were to raise critical issues in a readable way in hopes of encouraging each of us to question our understanding of contentious issues in our national debates, to put our own convictions on hold even for a moment, and to consider other points of view in respectful discussions with those holding alternate opinions to reduce our damaging national divide.

I anticipated that some readers would be uncomfortable with the questions I raised, would think I was promoting my own agenda, and would call my limericks “harsh, prejudicial, and disruptive” and I was right. But I also realized that these sentiments, hurtful as they were, allowed people with all views to come out of the shadows and share them.