I Swear

June 23-29, 2014

Line ‘em up

By Vic Fleming

Life, it seems, is full of lines. 

We may need or want something that is top-of-the-line. Such as a pair of in-line skates. We may stand in line to pay for them, using a line of credit. When we go to pick them up, we may draw the line at crossing a picket line.

If we get out of line or go over the line, someone in authority might lay it on the line for us, or draw a line in the sand. 

We cheer for our football team to “Hold that line!” By which we mean the line of scrimmage. There are linemen on the team. They are different from the “Wichita Lineman,” portrayed in song by Glenn Campbell. 

When we call someone, via a telephone line, we don’t much like to hold the line. But if the person we’ve called is persuasive, we might fall for something hook, line, and sinker. That person, by the way, was on the other end of the line, but that’s different from reaching the end of the line. 

Which itself is different from having to go to the end of a line. Such as a chow line, which we might stand in. We might cross a state line or county line. And applaud for a chorus line, especially if it gave us any laugh lines.

Buck Owens sang about “Waitin’ in Your Welfare Line.” 

In a byline article we check out the dateline, peruse the story line, and sometimes rush to the bottom line. 

We are mindful of fault lines, property lines, and the poverty line.

We line up putts and try to hit golf balls on line. Which is different from going online.

In baseball you may hit a line drive down the first base line. It may land right of the foul line.  

Other arenas feature goal lines, free throw lines, half-court lines, and end lines.

There’s fishing line, firing lines, battle lines, and boundary lines. There are blood lines, bus lines, tree lines, tag lines, product lines, and power lines. 

The line of duty may bring a line of questions or a line of poetry.

There are hotlines, trotlines, water lines, and land lines. Air lines, supply lines, service lines, bread lines, time lines, and hard lines.

Whether you live above or below the Mason-Dixon Line, you know when you’ve left the starting line and have a sense of where the finish line is.

On your way you may encounter dotted lines, fine lines, a Thin Blue Line, a coastline, a skyline, and a deadline or two. 

You may go up the line or, as sung about by Gerry Rafferty, “Right Down the Line.” If you’re driving, you don’t want to be “One Toke over the Line,” as per the Brewer and Shipley ‘70s classic.

Somehow, though, sometimes it all comes down to a need that Johnny Cash sang about in “I Walk the Line.”

If you have any thought lines on this column, then, by all means, drop me a line.

Vic Fleming is a district court judge in Little Rock, Ark., where he also teaches at the William H. Bowen School of Law. Contact him at vicfleming@att.net.