Baseball great Henry Aaron, he died yesterday. My dad shared with me on several occasions, “The curse of long life is that you lose all of your friends.” I would add to that: even your heroes, the ones you admire anonymously, from a distance, they die too. Live heroes are so much more accessible than dead ones. It puts one in a situation where you must raise someone else to fill the void or accept loss as a way of life. It requires placing faith in a rising star more from its trajectory than by its history. Then there are heroes certainly whose names and stories I don’t know but even in that knowledge I can take some comfort, heroes to be sure. They are what they are and they do what they do. Then, one day, they will pass on as well and someone more blessed than I will have to feel the loss.
The arc of Hank Aaron’s legacy is so far reaching it begs a hero’s story if not an epic legend. Statistics are one measuring rod but evidence is required for fame-sake. The hero’s mantle is a world removed from fame, remarkable as fame may be. What leaps off the page is the racism he overcame in route. From beginning to end his courage, a sense of purpose and dignity were equal to his numbers.
My purpose here is not about Hank Aaron’s hero-hood. It is about me and my need for heroes. When you find yourself at loose ends, who do you look to, think of, who do you trust enough to emulate? Believers look to God but I don’t qualify. I look to flesh and blood human beings who rise to the task, who fail and fall, who get back up, who may be of any faith or no belief at all. By my measure, divine intervention is part of the myth and though I love mythology I do not bow before it. Sometime soon I’m sure, I will lift up another hero. They pass through my life like birds migrating overhead. Mother Theresa has come and gone, so has Nelson Mandela but I keep them hallowed in a culture with a short memory. Still I am anxious for the next coming-out party, the surfacing of an uncrowned hero.
Today I sat down to write with strong feeling about fair and foul, good and evil. What weighs heavily on me in recent years has been, if not guilt, then a sense of unwitting complicity in this culture of racial disparity. Through writing and an unrelenting conscience I can bear the weight. Condemning manifest destiny as inherent folly, I see my task is to push through it. Not just clever word play; we can not get over it. That’s too much to ask, we can only labor through it.
I will miss Hank Aaron for a while. To be honest, it’s been a long time since I gave him my attention. But neither have I reconciled sins of both commission and omission, presumed to be part of God’s plan. Back in his heyday I followed his assault on Babe Ruth’s home run records. His fan mail overwhelmed the post office but they played down the high percentage of death threats. It would not have been good for baseball.
I would like to believe we have pushed through that wretched time but Making America Great Again has left us bare-assed, exposed again. Like a grand meal, served under a most noble pretense, in the process it turned to shit. We will smell of that insult for a long time, in ways too gross to ignore. If I need a living, breathing hero right now it would be Dr. Anthony Fauci. He spoke truth to power with convincing poise while a Trump-storm spewed around him. The tempest has blown itself out now and the good doctor’s credibility and reputation have prevailed and that will get me through the day.
The arc of Hank Aaron’s legacy is so far reaching it begs a hero’s story if not an epic legend. Statistics are one measuring rod but evidence is required for fame-sake. The hero’s mantle is a world removed from fame, remarkable as fame may be. What leaps off the page is the racism he overcame in route. From beginning to end his courage, a sense of purpose and dignity were equal to his numbers.
My purpose here is not about Hank Aaron’s hero-hood. It is about me and my need for heroes. When you find yourself at loose ends, who do you look to, think of, who do you trust enough to emulate? Believers look to God but I don’t qualify. I look to flesh and blood human beings who rise to the task, who fail and fall, who get back up, who may be of any faith or no belief at all. By my measure, divine intervention is part of the myth and though I love mythology I do not bow before it. Sometime soon I’m sure, I will lift up another hero. They pass through my life like birds migrating overhead. Mother Theresa has come and gone, so has Nelson Mandela but I keep them hallowed in a culture with a short memory. Still I am anxious for the next coming-out party, the surfacing of an uncrowned hero.
Today I sat down to write with strong feeling about fair and foul, good and evil. What weighs heavily on me in recent years has been, if not guilt, then a sense of unwitting complicity in this culture of racial disparity. Through writing and an unrelenting conscience I can bear the weight. Condemning manifest destiny as inherent folly, I see my task is to push through it. Not just clever word play; we can not get over it. That’s too much to ask, we can only labor through it.
I will miss Hank Aaron for a while. To be honest, it’s been a long time since I gave him my attention. But neither have I reconciled sins of both commission and omission, presumed to be part of God’s plan. Back in his heyday I followed his assault on Babe Ruth’s home run records. His fan mail overwhelmed the post office but they played down the high percentage of death threats. It would not have been good for baseball.
I would like to believe we have pushed through that wretched time but Making America Great Again has left us bare-assed, exposed again. Like a grand meal, served under a most noble pretense, in the process it turned to shit. We will smell of that insult for a long time, in ways too gross to ignore. If I need a living, breathing hero right now it would be Dr. Anthony Fauci. He spoke truth to power with convincing poise while a Trump-storm spewed around him. The tempest has blown itself out now and the good doctor’s credibility and reputation have prevailed and that will get me through the day.
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