One of These Is Not Like the Others!

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” ― Oscar Wilde

They say there's one in every family. The one who is just a little bit different from all the rest. The standout in a crowd. The one who is . . . you know . . . unique. (The joke is that if you can't figure out who it is in your family, well . . . I hate to break it to you, but . . . it just might be you.)

I was walking through the center of campus near Old Main when I saw the mama mallard duck and her young ducklings. This is just a subset of what was a much larger family group. They were strolling, tumbling, surging, charging along, the way ducklings do. You cannot stem the duckling tide! Best just get out of their way.

It took me a few minutes to notice that the one duckling was darker than the rest. But did anybody treat that one any differently because of it? No, of course not. Nobody treated ANYbody any worse for as silly a reason as the fact that somebody looked just a little bit different than all the rest!

The soundtrack: Sammy Davis, Jr., I Gotta Be Me.