Good things really do come in small packages.

Last week, the newspaper published a short but powerful letter from frequent contributor Tom McLaughlin, a proud, outspoken and unabashed conservative. He wrote to express sincere regret at the recent death of another frequent contributor, Dolph Honicker, a proud, outspoken and unabashed liberal.

In case you missed it, here’s the complete text of McLaughlin’s remarks - all four sentences:

“Although Dolph Honicker and I were adversaries, I will miss him. I admired him for taking a stand, but foremost for expressing his views. Due to our inherent stubbornness, I think compromise on an issue was out of the question, but he was always the ultimate gentleman, thus earning my respect. I wish his family well.”

Classy, huh.

Classy and important. McLaughlin’s letter reminds us - and we sorely need reminding - that in politics, and in life, there’s a difference between adversaries and enemies. People with strong but different convictions can and should express their views without losing their dignity, their manners or their sense of humor. Even when compromise does not result, the discussion can be open and honest without becoming rude, crude or personally insulting.

McLaughlin gets that. So did Honicker.

I wish more people did.

McLaughlin’s letter hints at another important attribute, one Honicker possessed in abundance. He was passionate about his beliefs and committed to expressing them. Even when I didn’t share his conclusions - which was most of the time - I envied his passion.

And, like McLaughlin, I admired Honicker’s willingness to stick his neck out. Not many of us would regularly sign our names to opinions we know will attract derision and inspire disgust. Honicker relished the opportunity.

“This one’s gonna make a lot of folks mad,” I’d tease as he delivered yet another piece taking an ardent liberal stance.

“Good!” he’d say, grinning with merriment, but not a hint of maliciousness. “They have every right to be wrong.”

I learned a lot from Dolph Honicker. As I got to know him as a person - as a lover of family, the environment, animals and, yes, his country - I realized that people don’t have to think alike to respect - and, yes - enjoy each other.

His former colleague Thomas Wood, writing for the Nashville City Paper, remembered Honicker as “a rare breed: a righteous ideologue who was fun to be around, no matter what your politics might be.”

I couldn’t agree more.

From Wood and other former colleagues - Honicker worked more than 45 years in newspapers - I learned that he was a legend at the Tennessean, the major daily in Nashville, were he was a talented, exacting and, sometimes, explosive editor for 37 years.

Before that, he was in the trenches, covering the civil rights movement, breaking the biggest story of his life at age 24 as a reporter for the Montgomery Advertiser. He was in Montgomery Circuit Court on Dec. 5, 1955, when Rosa Parks was fined $10 for refusing to leave a seat in the whites-only section of a city bus. The boycott that followed was a huge story - and Honicker was the first to tell it. He was justifiably proud of that until the day he died.

Old friends remember the man they called “Bunny” as a vivid character and verbal pugilist. He had a great laugh, something between a whoop and a guffaw, and he was adept at making others laugh, too.

Candy McCampbell, a veteran of the Tennessean, shared on Facebook that she and Honicker, an Auburn graduate, regularly bet on the Tennessee-Auburn football game. He always paid up, when necessary, but the time he lost a dollar bet on the Billy Jean King/Bobby Riggs tennis match was another story. “Bunny” paid her off with 99 pennies crammed inside a hollowed-out tennis ball, the 100th penny sealing the hole.

Sounds just like him.

The most important lesson I learned from Honicker was that it’s not necessary - certainly not right - to demonize those with whom we strongly disagree. Never forget that they are people, too. Get to know them a little and you might actually like them. Why, shoot, they have a mama and a dog; they like to garden and watch baseball and go to movies, same as you.

Dolph Honicker was indeed a character.

But he was a good man and, as McLaughlin said, the ultimate gentleman.

For all our differences, we agreed on some powerfully basic things: the importance of family, the worthiness of work, the precious freedoms of the First Amendment.

Like McLaughlin, I will miss him.