Column: Handling criticism is easy if you don’t care what people say

Published 12:00 am Thursday, May 15, 2003

&uot;Tempus fugit, tempus fugit,&uot; Mrs. Tyson, the Latin teacher used to mutter in dismal tones, by way of warning us of an approaching mid-term or final. Well, poor soul, she was older than my parents then, and must long since have gone to her reward.

Tempus is still fugiting, however, and with such swiftness that I’m unable to say whether I saw a certain movie (this time on television) several months ago or a year ago. I can tell you exactly when I saw it the first time &045; Dec. 7, 1937, on my 21st birthday.

I arrived to make my home in Albert Lea about a month before my birthday. It was a horrible day, ice-bound rain, grey skies. Hard, too, to find a place to live and I’d left a host of friends behind me.

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By Thanksgiving, though, we were settled in and a good friend from Cedar Rapids came to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with me, so things were looking up. It was a bit lonesome when she returned home and I think my mother, sensing that I wasn’t quite as up and coming as usual, decided to make my birthday a bit special.

This was during the depression and we didn’t make a great deal of birthdays even in the best of times, but I had nothing to complain about. My gifts were not lavish, but every one of them was special and right and every one of them pleased me.

My favorite, of course, was a book, P. G. Wodehouse’s &uot;Young Men in Spats,&uot; a collection of short stories. Wodehouse was a favorite of both my mother’s and mine. To make the day complete, a movie based on one of his novels was playing at the old Broadway Theater.

I don’t even remember the name of it now, but it starred Joan Fontaine in what well might have been her first movie in this country. Playing opposite her was Fred Astaire. Also in the film were George Burns and Gracie Allen. There was an austere aunt and a positively regal butler.

There was a bit of dialogue between the aunt and the butler &045; unhappily cut from the TV replay &045; that has remained with me for more than six decades and has at times given me great comfort.

Seeking to break up a romance between the leading couple, the arrogant aunt, realizing that the butler has been helping the romance along, turns on him.

&uot;I don’t like you,&uot; she snarls. &uot;I never have liked you. I never shall like you.&uot;

Regarding her haughtily, the butler replies, &uot;That, madam, leaves me in a state of indifference bordering on the supernatural.&uot;

I can’t tell you how often that lovely phrase, repeated silently to myself, has kept me from blowing my top at someone who has taken it upon him (her)self to convert me to his or her way of thinking.

I don’t arrive at my convictions on whim. More importantly, I have no desire at all to convert others to my way of thinking. As my grandmother taught me, &uot;Convince a fool against his will. He’ll be of the same opinion still.&uot;

I differ with some of my best friends on politics and religion, and while we retain our respective points of view, we do not insult each other in the process. I’m interested in what other people think and feel. They have every right to their opinions. Just as I have every right to mine.

When they forget my right and fly at me with critical remarks, they waste their time. I have my magic phrase, &uot;What you say, sir, leaves me in a state of indifference bordering on the supernatural.&uot;

By the way, did any of you notice a letter to the editor, written by Carter Hendricks, Brooklyn Park, which appeared in the May 6 edition of the Minneapolis newspaper?

Among other things in the letter was an account of a 31-year-old man in Brooklyn Park, arrested for threatening to shoot his wife and children.

The man was apprehended with his gun, a bullet-proof vest, lots of ammo and &045; oh yes &045; his permit to carry.

Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column appears Thursdays.