Today at my Memorial Day cookout I watched my friend’s charming two year old niece interacting with a heart-melting puppy. They were both adorable. Neither were trained. The baby Staffordshire Bull Terrier instinctively wanted to nip and bite. The toddler instinctively wanted to pick the puppy up and pull his tail. It was an amusing, but potentially dangerous combination. Neither could be left unattended with the other. Both were bound to be impulsive and harmful. A thirteen year old boy at the party recklessly lunged at the dog bringing out the dog’s innate fighter. The dog’s owner had to put the puppy back in his portable kennel.

Before my cookout, I bid farewell to my neighbor’s relatives who were also in town for the “Rolling Thunder” Memorial Day parade. Their bikes were stunningly painted with a picture of a soldier and a marine who were painted in halves: one half portrayed the man in his dress uniform, the other was bloody and dismembered in the gore of battle. If I had lived through a battle where I saw those scenes, I don’t think life could continue in the same way ever again. Obviously it can’t.

I was thinking about how the children and the puppy unintentionally and ignorantly escalated each other into biting and pulling. When will we as human beings be trained? When will we ever be old enough to know to treat the dog with respect? When will we know not to bite the inexperienced? Will be always have the impulse to fight? How long before we ever get it right? I wish we never had to send another person into war. I wish for world peace.


Nickleback, that headbanger music I was listening to during bike week, has a song called “If Everyone Cared.” The chorus asks

If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Would we see the day when nobody died?

Are those “ifs” too big? Is world peace too much to dream about?