Gordon Lightfoot recorded a song some years back called "Rainy Day People." It was about those people who "always seem to know when it's time to call." Perhaps you've been fortunate and you've had one or more of these folks in your life. If you have, you know how they can make a rainy day seem less dreary.

Or perhaps you've never known anyone like this. Currently, our nation seems to be in the grip of raging furies, with charges and counter-charges flying like artillery shells in a World War I barrage. I suspect that many of us who cringe at this state of affairs may have a little Schadenfreude at seeing pompous or pious people laid low by their own failings. I have to confess I'm a bit like this myself. Still, too much excitement is a bad thing.

Last year, I had the privilege of meeting Peter Yarrow, for many of us, a bard from our youthful days. He spoke of how he wanted to see a nation where people listened before talking, where citizens resist making unsupported accusations, where we learn to agree or disagree, but always with respect for the other person. I haven't heard any reports from this commendable initiative. I fear it's suffered the fate of many peacemaking ideas, blown away by a blast of high-explosive indignation or self-righteousness.

As I get later and later into my late 60s, I wonder what kind of nation we are leaving to the generations that will succeed us. I'm now a great-uncle (thanks, Casey and Shaunna!) and I don't want little Collins Montgomery Cook to remember me as an angry old fart. I may not be able to get very far, but I want to live out my life as a rainy day person.