I thought I would relay a short personal story about Lester Mondale who recently died and was the last living signer of Humanist Manifesto I and whom I kept in touch with sporadically over the years. I once asked him how he managed to get along living on Copperhead Mountain in a very fundamentalist, poor, conservative community in rural Missouri. He said although many people knew his liberal values it really wasn't an issue. Once a local who he had known for years sat on his porch and asked him in the middle of a conversation what his religion was. Lester answered him, "My religion is being the best neighbor I can to you." The man thought a second and nodded his head in approval as that was in fact how Lester lived his life and never questioned it again.

It is a telling story about the genuine humaneness and generosity of one who truly lived his humanism and how he viewed it.

Mike Werner