Oprah Winfrey has a monthly essay in her magazine entitled: “What I know for Sure.” I don’t know if I could write something that often with that surety. When I was young, I thought the world, like our daily newspaper, was black and white. In middle age, I find the world is very gray like the cloud cover that hangs over the Appalachians during the winter. Varying shades of gray with occasional bright sunshine. I thought people were good or evil. Now it’s clear that evil people can do good things and good people are capable of evil. I think about this when I hear the blabbering suits on cable television excoriating someone in the other political party. Or the Cleveland abductor’s neighbors express shock that their school bus driving neighbor could be responsible for such a house of horrors. I think most people are what they seem, but this is not something I can say for sure.

History is filled with contradictions. Recently, I was thinking of Lyndon Johnson. A white man from the south, he had an unusual sense of empathy towards people of color. As speaker of the House of Representatives, he didn’t do anything to advance civil rights. Perhaps the pragmatic politician? But when he became president, he created the Civil Rights Act and deployed all his political skills to get it passed. A signature acheivement. But then he got us mired in Vietnam. Great man? Evil man? I can’t say for sure.