CLEVELAND, Ohio — I often try to figure out how people can start a conversation in one direction and then, without a single warning sign, watch it detour someplace else. In the worst of cases, it can crisscross terrain neither one of them wanted it to travel.

I had it happen to me a short while back.

I was in a conversation with a friend — like me, he’s a writer— and we were talking about nothing in particular. To borrow a solid Yiddish word, he and I were “kibitzing.”

In the turns and twists of our conversation, he mentioned the “Flintstones,” a Saturday cartoon from our childhood. I guess he had thoughts of it rolling around in his mind, which the theme song re-enforced. He and I agreed some lyrics might not sit well with folk these days.

He pointed to the final refrain. It went: “We

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