There was once a cricket on the loose in my former church. When things were quiet and still, his wings sang at top volume . . . like at weddings. And funerals. And during long prayers. And very early on Sunday morning before the place started jumpin’ with cars and microphones and organ preludes.

Many great men and women down through the ages have offered counsel on how to keep our tongues checked and caged. Like Will Noris, the American journalist who specialized in rhymes that packed a wallop. He once wrote: “If your lips would keep from slips, / Five things observe with care: / To whom you speak, of whom you speak, / And how . . . and when . . . and where.”

Most folks I know like things to stay as they are. You’ve heard all the sayings that reveal our preference for the familiar: Leave well enough alone. I don’t like surprises. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Stay with a sure thing.

Floundering with my father is among my most cherished childhood memories. Armed with a beat-up Coleman lantern, two gigs, a stringer . . . we’d head to the water. When the sky got nice ‘n’ dark, we’d wade in about knee-deep and stumble off into the night.