I have always been a contrarian, ever since my childhood. I just didn’t realize it.

My personal intellectual hero is the most famous contrarian of all time: Samuel Johnson.

I have always been a contrarian.  I have always tended to think everything through for myself and to form my own opinions.

When I was growing up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, there would be a sign on the front of our church in the summer reading: closed for July and August. This didn’t seem right to me. Most of my friends were Catholic. They went to mass every week.

The Catholic churches never closed.

I thought: if religion is so important in the life of mankind, how can it be UNimportant in July and August as opposed to November or December?

*****************************************************

The following are the five WORST statements of mine — things I have opined from my young adulthood to later years — so adjudged by members of my nuclear family.

that I preferred to read whatever authors I wanted to and didn’t like reading assigned books in college (age 21)

that all prisoners should be released (in my early 20’s)

that I didn’t like Miami Dolphins coach Don Shula

that I didn’t think much of The New Yorker

that I think the New York Times editorials are boring and written in committee-speak

— Roger W. Smith

   September 2017