View from the North 40: Move along, folks, there's no sympathy to see here

If sympathy was a tangible thing that you could use to fill a room, all the sympathy my siblings and I got from our parents when we were children would amount to a vast, empty hall filled with nothing but echoes of our complaints.

Maybe a few crickets taking advantage of the awesome acoustics.

I claim three parents so, sure, the odds are that there were moments of sympathy. Let’s put one box of sympathy in that room, in a far corner — one of those sturdy, but little, boxes suitable for packing books without hurting your back.

In my memories, though, the take away from childhood — and my siblin...