“Friendship shouldn’t be a battle.”
That is the chalk today, and it is not just a throwaway line. Back in 1975, the band War dropped a song called Why Can’t We Be Friends? A tune that asked that question thirty-six times in three minutes. It was playful, funky, and deceptively simple.
Let us look closer at the lyrics and you find lines that cut to the bone: “The color of your skin don’t matter to me, as long as we can live in harmony.” That’s not just a rhyme. That’s a plea.
I think about that song when I look at the divide we are in today. Families that won’t sit at the same table because one voted blue and the other voted red. Friends who won’t pick up the phone because four years under one president meant agreeing with Dad, and the next four meant screaming at Uncle Steven.
We are slicing life into chapters: childhood, teenager, college, marriage, middle age, gray hair...
...and each one feels shorter than the last.
And now we are letting politics erase the people who matter most inside those chapters.
Unless your friend is consumed by hate. Someone who lives for argument, who is bombastic and cruel in every conversation, then you’ve got something not worth saving.
If it is a Republican friend who stood at your parents’ wake, or a Democrat who called during your divorce to check in, then you can’t throw that away over an election cycle.
That is when you brush the difference aside and carry that friendship into 2026. Because in the long run, what do you really want? To stand alone in the name of being right, or to sit with someone who was there when you needed them?
Our time here is short. Break it into decades, into eras, and you will see just how short it really is. Friends are the glue in those years. The ones who walk with you in Chinatown, who share a drink, who make you laugh when you’re broke and standing in line. Friends who knew you when you were working for the CIA. Those are the ones you keep.
Today's Grabber Section: Tomorrow we will celebrate Earth, Wind & Fire and remember the 21st of September. I want it to be Jumbo who asks you, Do you remember?
Today, though, the 20th is going to be a cloudy day.
I successfully earwormed you Chalkheads with two songs from the same decade, with the same message...
... it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about choosing harmony over division. Why can’t we be friends in the key that our souls were singing?!?!?!
