The Stop Sign, Part 3

The Stop Sign, Part 3
“Thank you professor but it still isn’t clear to me why you wouldn’t like someone to get hurt or killed. Is this an opinion you have? Maybe there is someone in the world, even someone in this room who would be delighted if someone was hurt or killed for failing to stop at a stop sign. What would make your thought any more valid than that thought? Is your position on this seemingly strange question one of absolute truth, or is it an opinion?

Professor Wilson, stalling to ponder the issue on the floor, continued to put away his lecture notes, stuffing them into the black leather brief case, the one he had been given 30 years ago when he began his teaching career. The case was showing its age; the handle needing some repair. He snapped the case shut with a click, left it on his desk and slowly moved to the front of the desk, his hands behind his back. He had long ago been aware that a question like this might arise; he had expected it but had hoped that he could get through his teaching career without having to address the thought behind the question. He remembered that long ago, before college, he would have had a quick answer to this kind of question but his college education had changed his mind. He had known & been aware that the things he was teaching about evolution had a moral concern but he had put the problem aside, so that he could accept this position at the University and live a good life. He simply wished to maintain his career with the least amount of confrontation, accepting his comfortable paychecks without having to deal with questions that bothered him. Wilson was keenly aware that much of what he taught about evolution was nonsense but he did it anyway. What would his colleagues think of him if he didn’t spew the usual story? He would be laughed at; he might even lose his position. No, he thought, during his 30 years of teaching…he would teach what he had been taught to teach and not worry about other things. But here he was, facing a crowd of some 600 eyes…all wishing to have some word of wisdom from the old professor.

He stood in front of his desk for a long time, his eyes focused on young ‘Billy’Lynch. Not that he was at a loss of words but he wondered about the connection between this strange question and the many lectures that preceded it, though he feared where the question might be leading. What was the connection between stopping for a stop sign and the hours of telling the students about evolution? In all his years of attending school himself, he had never found himself in this kind of situation.

Wilson was not a big man, as men go. His 200 pounds were spread over a frame that would hardly qualify for a football team. Most of his hair was gone, not that he was bald but he had, several years earlier, decided to keep his hair short, not skin-head short but clipped very close. He wore steel rimmed glasses; bifocals. They sat on his broad nose just above a thin line mustache. His chin was now beardless though he often sported a beard, a goatee of sorts. He had recently shaved it off, giving him a new look, even a freshman look, perhaps fitting for the retirement he had envisioned with Sally, his wife, as they made plans to visit Europe as soon as things on campus were wrapped up. He was wearing a light blue denim short-sleeved shirt, one with a banded collar, unbuttoned at the top. The shirt was tucked into his dark blue Levi trousers, and he had a wide western style belt with a large buckle, the kind many cowboys wear.

He lowered his hands to his sides, realizing that he had to say something.

“Yes,” he said. “It is absolutely true that it would not be a good thing for someone to be hurt or killed at a stop sign.”

Dan Schobert, W9MFG@charter.net