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In the fall of 1967, when we were freshmen at a little Lutheran college in Oakland, California, one of my roommates invited me to join his family in Los Angeles for the Thanksgiving holiday. My own family was in Honolulu at that time; I was delighted to visit L.A.
My friend’s parents seemed respectfully interested in the opinions that we boys had formed in our nearly three months of intense scholarship and observation of life in the Bay Area. In the course of one conversation, when the menace and merits of marijuana were mentioned, I confidently predicted, “Within five years, pot will be legal.” As it turned out (you may have heard), my youthful hopes and expectations slightly missed the mark.
Over the years, I have grown more cautious. If, today, you (or my friend’s parents) were to ask me to make a prediction about a future event, about, for instance, the outcome of the 2018 midterm elections, I would include less specificity in my reply. Come Thanksgiving, however, I might be willing to say a bit more. I would rather, for sure, eat turkey than crow.
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