Date: January 1, 2013
by: The Observer Staff

Jock Mackenzie, contributing writer for the Palm Coast Observer

“With malice toward none!”

A special friend, the late Leo Cloutier, wrote those words in every column during many sports writing years. He was a close friend of baseball star Ted Williams — so close that Williams gave Cloutier his present car when gifted with new wheels at a Fenway Park celebration for the baseball slugger. Through all those years, my friend never stopped penning those special words.

Growing up poor, I was angry. I was sent to war at 18. For two of the three years in total I served in combat, I was even more angry. Then, when a bullet struck me inches from the heart, I gave up. It was just too much for a youngster to take, and it’s still there each night that I put my head on the pillow. But then Leo’s words started creeping through my mind more and more:

“With malice toward none!”

When I play a lousy game of golf, as I do now more often, I’m mad at myself. Then, when I get home, I think of my friend Leo, and his words overcome all the anger by nightfall.
Try it. When the world socks you in the gut, think of my friend Leo and the thousands of times he wrote those special words, “With malice toward none!”