Common Sense

Yesterday was February 29, a date that appears but once every four years. The plight of a person born on February 29 was the key to creating the plot of “Pirates of Penzance,” a very popular comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. The key character was indentured to pirates until his 21st birthday, and spent his entire life until then on the high seas. He never saw but one woman, his nurse, but upon his 21st birthday, the crew made port and he fell in love with one of the first girls he saw. Alas, it was then revealed that he had not celebrated his 21st birthday after all, since the date comes only once every four years, so he was to continue serving the pirates for 63 more years. His true love promised to wait for him. He would not be 21 and free until he had been on the earth 84 years!
The storyline pokes fun at common sense, which says if you have been on the earth 21 years, you are 21 years old. Common sense, however, is on the wane these days.
Ben Franklin winced at ideas that mocked common sense. Here are a few quotations from this man whose wisdom was admired by many:

In this bureaucratic, legalistic age, when right is wrong and wrong is right, common sense is hard to find; oh, that it might rise and rule again.