Six Foot & Some Change

The morning grass was damp and cool with dew. My yellow rain slicker contrasted sharply against the bright green. Church bells rang and the birds were chirping. I must have looked like an early nineteenth century romantic poet (Walt Whitman, perhaps?) lounging around a meadow celebrating nature and the glory of my existence.

But this was about something bigger than me (by at least 44 feet).

Lying in the grass and looking up, I could tell the tree was at least 50 feet tall. It was the last tree standing where a once glorious forest existed. When I got there that morning a bulldozer was only about ten feet away from the tree.

That’s when I sprinted full speed and launched myself into the air and into the path of the bulldozer. I rolled to a stop inches from the huge metal shovel scraping the ground, and I was not going to budge one inch from my spot in front of that monstrous machine.

Let me tell you, nothing is scarier than a silent and parked bulldozer.

I was there that morning with the hopes of saving that tree, and also of making headlines in the local newspaper. I could just see it printed on the front page: Local Hero Lays Down Life To Save Tree.

It’s not about celebrity for me. It’s about showing that I care.

But it’s not enough to just quietly go about caring anymore. No, now we need the world to see that we care. I am just trying to do my part to show I am doing my part.

But no journalists or TV news stations came to witness my selfless heroics. In fact, nobody came at all, not even Satan’s henchmen (the construction crew). People might scoff and say, “But it was Sunday.”

Yes, but if you’re a hero you can’t take a day off.

I’d rather be brave a day early than a day late. Most cowards show up late to their destiny. I like to show up early, and quite often I leave early too, but at least I have the guts to lay down my life for something I’d die for.

Now it’s true that I had only laid down my life for a short fifteen-minute nap. But I can forever hold my chin high as I loudly tell anyone who will listen to my exploits as an unsung hero (not that I haven’t written dozens of songs dedicated to my bravery).

Here’s just a sample from the chorus section of one of the songs I wrote dedicated to my bravery:

“Oh that Jarod, he’s so brave
So brave, and oh so handsome
Like a spoon, a fork and a knave
He is the mer to winter’s sum”

Most superheroes hide anonymously behind masks. That’s cowardly to me, so I don’t wear one. And the only reason I’m anonymous is that journalists don’t respond to my requests for interviews, and when I hold press conferences nobody shows up, not even my own mother.

Here’s the text message I got from my mother, fifteen minutes before my last press conference. She wrote: “Jarod, cut out that nonsense and come home immediately. Your dinner is getting cold.” I got it just as I was setting up my wooden podium in the middle of undeveloped swampland behind the neighborhood I grew up in.

My dinner was indeed cold that night. Being a public figure means certain demands being placed on my life, and I’m willing to sacrifice the warmth of my meal to stare down the cold realities society faces.

The world doesn’t know all the good I’ve done for the world. And that’s fine with me. Not really. But if I have to go on being anonymous to make this world a better place, I will.

Nevertheless, I’m thinking about changing my Hours of Altruism from 7-8 Sunday mornings to 9-5 Monday through Friday.