by Freida Marie Crump
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Greetin’s from the Ridge.
Pity poor Barry Bonds. Just when he got the job he wanted, somebody changed the requirements. Roger Merris held the homerun record for 37 years then Mark McGwire blasted banner headlines all across the nation three years ago as he knocked 70 white balls over the fence. In both cases, time stopped. Folks canceled meetings, huddled around TV’s and joined in a national celebration. When Bonds broke McGwire’s record last week our local paper reported at the bottom of the sports page, just below the stories of three high school football games.
Reminded me of Vern Blevin’s boy Jacob. Jacob spent two years of schoolin’ tryin’ to become the world’s best carburetor mechanic. By the time he got out of automotive school, every new car had fuel injection.
Barry Bonds became a hero just three weeks after somebody reinvented the term.
There’s one spot in Wal-Mart I never pass up. It’s the poster section. I stop here because I don’t have the energy or the inclination to keep up with current trends. Fact is, I’m still on my first microwave and MTV still sounds like somethin’ you contract in your prostate once you get your first social security check. But a quick flip through the poster chart will give me enough current scoop to converse for at least ten minutes with anyone under 15.
The current trend seemed to be professional wrestlers, rock stars, and sports heroes. These overblown and pampered prettyboys of Americana seem to have captured the minds and imaginations of anyone to whom acne is still a major concern.
The posters irritate me, but I’ve got a couple of neighbor girls who already consider me to be the likable brontosaurus down the block and I’m just hopin’ I can keep from slippin’ back another millenium or two in their esteem.
The smell of fresh cookies usually lures ‘em to my front porch of an evenin’ and last night we had a chat. I asked ‘em if they’d heard about Barry Bonds. Two of the gals had no idea and my neighbor Mindy thought he might have had a supportin’ role in Days of Our Lives. This was the best news I’d heard in years.
"We’ve been writin’ about heroes all week in class, Freida," they told me. Two of the girls had picked New York Fire Fighters and one of ‘em chose the passengers who tried to overtake the highjackers over Pennsylvania.
We came up with our own rankin’ system and although the Crumps’ front porch in Coonridge is a long way from representin’ the entire country, I thought I’d pass along what adolescent wisdom I managed to pick up on an October afternoon.
A Major League Baseball player, average salary $2,264,000.. not a hero. New York City fireman, average salary $34,070…hero. An NFL player whose kind average a meager $1,170,000 a year…not a hero. A patrolman on the streets of the Big Apple pullin’ down $38,710 a year…a hero. Fact is, the girls allowed as how anybody whose job description involved the possibility of layin’ their life on the line should qualify as a hero.
They told they probably knew this all along but that the events of the last few weeks had reminded ‘em of what’s what.
The NBA player who on average knocks down $4.2 million a year didn’t come up in their discussion of heroes. True, we didn’t have any boys present in our little Committee to Pick Heroes but the girls said that "even a stupid old boy" knows that a teacher drawin’ $30,000 a year is gonna do the world more good than a basketball bouncin’ playboy.
Rock stars and movie idols rakin’ in millions per performance began to pale compared the bright light of soldiers bein’ shipped out to this part of the world and that with only a military paycheck in their pockets.
With a little proddin’ from the old brontosaurus, the girls talked about more American heroes…. The young father who’s not cowed by the current economic uproar and who continues to go to work every mornin’, investin’ what he can and savin’ for the future of his children…. The flight attendant who dutifully climbs aboard the Los Angeles to Denver aircraft every mornin’, prayin’ that whatever occurs, she can handle it, smilingly puttin’ aside her fears to calm those of others… the minister who mounts the pulpit every Sunday, gropin’ for words to make sense of misery in a world controlled by a loving God… the third-grade teacher who can see the prospect of a generation raised on fear and who tries each day to fight it with love.
It’s been a rough few weeks for the American spirit as we mourn our losses, but it did encourage me that at least in this little corner of the world we’d found somethin’ again: our heroes.
You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door, but you’ll enjoy the trip.