It was the third of June . . .

. . . another sleepy, dusty Delta day.

Did you catch that earworm? Okay, sorry. I couldn't resist. If you did catch that earworm, you are probably of a certain age. Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" was released in 1967 and was a smash hit. Although there really is a Tallahatchie Bridge in Money, Mississippi, Gentry made up the story of Billie Jo McAllister. (Spoiler alert: he jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge.)

After the song became a hit, Rolling Stone reported that it's only a twenty foot drop off the bridge, and the water is deep enough that you would not hurt yourself if you jumped off it. Many people tested this theory, driving the local police crazy. What drove the rest of us crazy was trying to figure out what they threw off that bridge up on Choctaw Ridge. Most of us were certain it was a baby.

But Gentry would not concur. She posited that it was not important what was thrown off the bridge. What was important in the story was the casual way that the family discussed the suicide of Billie Jo McAllister over dinner. Pass the biscuits, please.

"The song is a study in unconscious cruelty," Gentry asserts.

Wow. Unconscious cruelty. There's a lot of that going on these days. As we declare our tribe and spout our opinions, there are people who are suffering in myriad ways. People in Puerto Rico with no electricity. People in Flint, Michigan, with no safe water. People at the border being separated from their children. Children in school buildings worried about being shot. People dying a slow death because they cannot afford health insurance. And we discuss these issues over dinner with an academic disconnect from the reality that others are living. Pass the biscuits, please.

Or we don't discuss anything at all of concern over dinner. We check our phones, stare into space, or race off to our ball game or shopping mall or local tavern, thinking ourselves safe from the sad events happening in other people's lives.

And I'm not saying that we should spend our days like Debby Downer, being depressed about the state of humanity. (Although it gets harder and harder to avoid that these days.) What I am saying is that there seems to be more and more sadness, more despair, and more hopelessness out there. A lot of people are eying that bridge.

It shouldn't be this way. There is a panacea for "unconscious cruelty." Call it compassion, call it empathy, call it human kindness.

Keep those things in mind when you vote.