I am blessed to have been adopted by a large family of ‘gentlefolk’, six sisters and one brother.  They view fashion as art, and consequently, I have to sit quietly and endure the ‘great void’ that is the Academy Awards.  I find the whole thing mind-numbing, but I have learned to be as polite as my wife and her sisters are to me, so I sit in silence.   My mind wanders off to Toad of Toad Hall, to Badger, Ratty and Mole and the others. Each of them is accepted as they are, and are not pushed to be anything else.  Belonging does not demand conformity. The people I value do not write me out of their books of life because we disagree.  What links us is not that we are like-minded but rather that we are like-hearted.