Ed Goldman: Thoughts on a lifetime of easy virtue

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Columnist Ed Goldman says flossing is one of those virtuous deeds that hardly anyone else will know about.

Ed Goldman

Columnist- Sacramento Business Journal

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As my birthday approaches, I realize that for most of my life, I've been a man of easy virtue.

I don't mean I've been amoral or a virile conquistador. I mean it takes very little for me to feel virtuous.

When I voted last week, I was frankly disappointed that I wasn't handed one of those "I VOTED" stickers or wristbands that I could subtly display wherever I went the rest of the day. After all, feeling virtuous is something one likes to share, if not exploit.

The rewards for some virtuous deeds tend to be intrinsic. For example, I floss with casual smugness every day but the only one who notices is my dentist — and I don't think he entirely believes me, though the evidence of my improving gum line is clear and unambiguous. I think he just has a medical skepticism about claims a patient may make.

So does my family doctor. When she asks me how many cocktails I have each day, I say "one or two" which she immediately translates as "two or three." When I'm asked if I smoke, I say, "Oh, maybe a couple of cigars a week," which I'm certain she knows means "I smoke one almost every night."

When her assistant weighs me I'm pretty sure she knows I wasn't "10 pounds lighter than that on my bathroom scale this morning." And when she takes my blood pressure, she probably doubts my claim that I drank 14 cups of coffee before running up the stairs to her office, which is why my systolic pressure registers in light years.

As a teenager, I thought nice penmanship was next to godliness and always felt very proud of mine. But I changed my mind when I turned in a very sloppily written bluebook for an essay test and got a higher grade than usual. I think what happened was that the teacher couldn't make out much of what I'd written and simply gave me the benefit of the doubt -- possibly because he knew I flossed. In truth, I hadn't studied for that test since I'd spent the night before discussing virtue in my dad's car with my girlfriend. She was for it. I thought the concept needed more clarity.

In any event, I didn't understand the test topic and bloviated my way through the bluebook. Little did I realize I had been sowing the seeds of my coming career as a columnist.

Ed Goldman, president of Goldman Communications Inc., is a Sacramento writer and marketing consultant. His collection of Business Journal columns, "But I Digress," is available at Amazon.com.