Unlikely chances for acts of heroism
Calamus
Tim Ellison |
THIS SUMMER I worked as a student assistant in an office here at Fresno State, and like many other employees who made the commute to campus each morning, I had to wake up very early. Since I lived a good distance from campus in my parents’ house in Sanger, I set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. every morning so that I would have enough time to perform my hygienic rituals, enjoy a bowl of cold cereal, and read a bit of the morning paper (i.e. the comics) before hitting the road at 6:30.
For the most part I was able to maintain this schedule without incident, with one embarrassing exception.
At our house one or two tree frogs will commonly sneak underneath the door into the house during the night and, as they naturally seek out dark places like the underside of a couch or the space beneath the refrigerator, their porous skin often collects a lot of dust, which eventually immobilizes and kills them.
One morning as I sat at the breakfast table I noticed just such an unfortunate visitor inching his way across the floor, his little legs so tied up with dust that he could hardly hop, and I, gallantly putting my Wheaties aside, came immediately to the rescue.
I scooped up the frog in both hands and rushed out the door into the backyard, where we had installed a little pond.
I sprinkled the frog with water from the pond and washed most of the dust away easily, but for his legs I had to carefully pull the dust off using my thumb and index finger like a pair of tweezers.
After a couple minutes the frog was able to hop out of my hands into some nearby bushes, continuing his little froggy life as though nothing had happened.
I felt quite proud of myself, and I’m sure I would have continued feeling so had I not had to deal with the cruel fact that the door into the backyard was still locked from the inside.
In my heroic dash to the pond I had forgotten to release the lock, so I had been able to go out, but I could definitely not get back in. I checked the front door, the windows, and, in desperation, the back door again: all locked.
There was only one thing left to do, and that was to throw rocks at my parents’ bedroom window on the second floor in hopes of waking them up to unlock the door and let me in.
Five or six rocks later my dad was at the back door, very tired and very confused by my explanation of how I could be stupid enough to lock myself out of the house at 6 a.m. in the morning.
Life wants to make heroes out of us, but it loves to make fools of us just as well.
Summer is over and another year of school is starting, and though it inevitably comes with routines and worries and hours of boredom, it also comes with opportunities to be a hero, often in small and unexpected ways.
Even if you have to interrupt your busy schedule or potentially make a fool of yourself, don’t be afraid to help someone out or offer a kind word.
You never know how much good you might do.
Comment on this story in the Opinion forum >>
|
