I realized a few days ago that I had run out of heroes. I knew I was running low, given the fact that the last batch of heroes I had were the bold adventurers back in the space race. You know, those guys who strapped themselves onto a rocket that was just as likely to blow up on the pad as it was to make it to orbit.
I had other heroes, too. I really respected those guys who traipsed off into the jungles and swamps of Vietnam at the behest of the government, knowing that there was a very good chance that they would come home in a box. My brother was one of them. He didn’t come home in a box. Others did. They were all heroes to me.
As you can see, I haven’t had to get a new supply of heroes for a while. But it was time.
Unfortunately, and perhaps unknown to many of us, the supply of heroes isn’t what it used to be. We seem to be running out of them..
I sensed something was wrong as I stepped into the Heroes ‘R’ Us store. The shelves looked a bit bare. Captain Sully was there, of course. So were the firemen and policemen from 9/11 who still went up in the second building after the first one collapsed. My friend Josh was there, who went back to war after doing his tours so other fathers could have a break, only to be blown up.
“Can I help you, sir?” the guy at the counter asked.
“I’m running low on heroes. It’s been a while since I had to shop for new ones. What do you have?”
He showed me over to one display that was overflowing with stock.
“These are our newest heroes. They are professional athletes. Very popular these days.”
“What do they do that makes them heroic?”
“Uhm, well, I.. don’t really know,” he stammered. “But they are very popular with children and young adults. And there’s a lot of people your age who idolize them, I hear.”
“They do? Why?” I asked, looking at them in amazement. “They play a game. And get millions of dollars to play it. How is that heroic? What else have you got? Anyone who actually works for a living?”
We moved into the next aisle. Things weren’t getting any better. They appeared to be movie stars, though I could barely tell one from another. I’m not sure I’d ever put a movie star in the hero category.
“Nope, no heroes here either,” I said dejectedly.
He was going to take me to the space section, but unless someone is jumping a ship to Mars sometime in the near future, I don’t really find the current crop of astronauts to be in the same league as the guys I grew up with. No offense to them, but it’s no longer “blasting off to the great unknown” any more. It’s like comparing the scientists who go to the South Pole every year to Roald Amundsen who was the first to make it there in 1911 at great peril to him and his party. They’re just not in the same league. Plus, I would go into space in a second if I could. And I’m definitely no hero.
As I roamed the aisles I became more and more unhappy. We were indeed running out of heroes. In the political aisle, there were no heroes at all. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governator, had been removed. Guess that happens when you’re porking your housekeeper.
Of course, I wouldn’t even put him in the hero category, except as the Terminator. Well, I thought he was pretty good in True Lies, too. There’s a big difference between a real hero and a movie hero. But I digress.
“I see you’re having trouble finding some heroes, here,” said the clerk.”What exactly are you looking for?”
“Well, I need someone who is the true definition of a hero, the kind I grew up with,” I said. “They need to go completely against the odds and do something the rest of us would brand as lunacy, stupid or suicide anyway. They’re the guys like Audie Murphy in World War II who singlehandedly fended off the Germans for an hour all by himself. Or Ghandi, who to great peril to himself, led the Indian people to independence through civil disobedience and peaceful resistance. It’s Sir Edmund Hillary who conquered Mt. Everest, knowing that many died before him trying. And John Kennedy who saved his crew of the PT 109 even though he had been gravely injured himself.”
The 20-something clerk stood there, his mouth gaping in disbelief.
“You mean there were people like that? They weren’t just in the movies? Those are some amazing heroes indeed. Wish we had some of them here right now. We’d sell out in now time.”
His last statement ringed true. We did sell out.
Somewhere over the course of the last 40 years society has totally redefined what a hero is. Today, we toss the word about with reckless abandon, calling everyone and his mother a hero for one thing or another that in the old days, wouldn’t be considered heroic at all. It wouldn’t even get a mention in the newspaper.
I could see that I would just have to make due with the heroes I had on hand. Obviously, the world had changed while I was growing up and the ranks of true heroes had become very, very thin.
“Thanks for all your time,” I said. “I wish you well with the store, but I think all your heroes are really zeroes.”
I turned and walked out. It was then that I saw a glimmer of hope. For there, across the street, was a Boy Scout, standing next to a little old lady. They were looking up in a tree. It appeared that her cat had climbed up there. The Boy Scout asked if she wanted him to get it out of the tree for her.
“Yes, young man, I would.” she said in a frail voice.
The boy reached into his pocket, then shot the cat dead with a concealed weapon he had been carrying.
“There you go ma’am,” he said, walking away.
As I said, we’re fresh out of heroes. I wonder what they are going for on Ebay these days?
Out on the Treasure Coast, trying to find a hero who’s not a zero,
– Robb