Merle Haggard could teach us a lot about seeing goodness in people Thomas D. Hird

My grandparents were farmers, and I grew up in a conservative Christian household. We went to church three times a week, and where I went to college, we had chapel every day. Most of my career, I either defended death row inmates (deep blue) or insurance companies (ruby red). Like most people, sometimes I am conservative and sometimes I am liberal.

Merle Haggard was also sometimes conservative (“Fightin’ Side of Me,” “Are the Good Times Really Over”) and sometimes liberal (“Irma Jackson,” “Hillary”). If your knowledge of him is a vague recollection of the lark he wrote at the expense of my hometown, “Okie from Muskogee,” you are missing out. Revered as the poet of the common man, his great unrequited love, Dolly Parton, said Merle’s “heart was as tender as his love ballads.”