A Mighty Few

When I was in high school, I was on the newspaper staff.  It was a tiny little newspaper, powered entirely by its student members.  We designed the layouts, wrote the cheesy headlines, took the grainy pictures, cropped them to fit, spent hours searching for just the right piece of appropriate and amusing ClipArt... and yes, we wrote the articles.

In my first year as a member, my junior year, we were made aware of a significant event.  A previous alum, a Marine, had been given the Bronze Star after seeing combat in Afghanistan.

It just so happened that I knew The Marine, not through high school, but rather through church.  I had known him for years in that our-parents-run-in-the-same-circles way.

I could remember being over at their house when the boys (The Marine and his twin brother) were still in high school.  I can't remember why we were there or what I was doing.  But I do remember that the twin was on the computer, listening to The Marine, who was talking even then about his plans to join the military.  He even showed me how to do a real push-up.

Because of that connection, hearing about this high honor being conferred upon him made me ridiculously proud.

The time came to decide which of us would write the article, and although part of me really wanted to write it, the other part of me was scared to death of screwing it up.  But no one else felt up to the task, either; this was the most serious, most important news article we had ever written.  Eventually, I bit the bullet, and volunteered.

Other than an installment of the fictional story I was writing with PurpleFriend for the issue, the article about The Marine was my only other writing responsibility.

I won't lie.  I procrastinated.  Which is something I am very good at.

But I knew I had to write it.  I wanted to write it, and write it well.  So I got my mom involved.

My Superhero Mom got me The Marine's phone number by way of His Awesome Mom.  I sat next to the phone for two hours writing and re-writing my questions for him.  I was less-than-thrilled about talking on the phone, but for this purpose it seemed not only necessary, but also worthwhile.  I picked up the phone and dialed.

For the next 45 minutes or so, The Marine patiently answered my questions and explained the events leading up to his award.  I was overwhelmed.  The situation he was describing was far too intense for me to imagine, but you can bet my imagination did its best.  I was scared for my friend, so much so that my mouth went dry, and the pencil I used to record his words shook in my hand.

"I could feel the prayers," he told me near the end of the interview.  "There was no way I could have survived that without God... I was convinced those prayers were saving me."

Only a few minutes later, I hung up the phone, and cried.

The next day, I set about composing the article.  It began with The Marine's childhood dreams, and what followed was gunfire.  The story I wrote then was unique to my repertoire, being the only such story I'd ever set to paper that wasn't fictional.  The Marine, brave in a way I would never fully understand, put his own life in danger, while his fellow soldiers fell back to cover, to call in the coordinates for air support.  His efforts led to victory.

That ridiculous pride only grew stronger as I put the finishing touches on the article and cropped the picture of the ceremony provided by His Awesome Mom.  That article remains one of the best things I have ever written, merely because of the subject -- the character and courage of the subject.

A few weeks later, The Marine was actually in town.  He came to church with His Awesome Mom, who wanted to put the two of us face-to-face after our phone conversation and the article.  I just remember being nervous as all get-out, standing there in front of this person.  I'd known him for years, sure, but now he was a Marine, and a hero to boot!  I couldn't speak.  I just smiled like an idiot.

He held out his hand for a handshake.

It is pertinent to tell you at this juncture in the story, that The Marine was not very tall.  I think I was 5'7"ish as a junior in high school, and height-wise, he didn't top me by much.

But good Lord, did that boy have muscles.

He held out that hand to shake mine, and I could feel my eyes going wide.  I was sure his bicep was as big as I was.  I was also sure he could crush my hand by accident.  But I swallowed, took that hand, and shook it as firmly as I could.  (I am absolutely certain he was not fooled in any way.  The Marine definitely knew I was a wimp).

I think after that, we exchanged a few words about life, the article, and tattoos, but my memory of the conversation is honestly a little fuzzy.  I was half-focused on his words and half-focused on the color rising into my face.

Our paths crossed a few more times, but for the most part, my knowledge of The Marine after that was indirect.

I knew when he got married.  And my parents helped him out quite a bit when he moved.  And through his twin brother, to whom I was and am much closer, I was fortunate enough to hear about him, his wife, his two adorable little girls.  I knew him that way, and loved him because of it.

I am just a wanna-be writer, with extra words tucked into every corner of my head.  Those words could never be enough to describe the kind of person he was, the amount of love and prayers that surrounded him daily, the pride he incited just by being what he was born to be.  But I wouldn't have felt right if I didn't at least try.

God rest you, Kevin Balduf.  You were more than a hero to me.

Diplomatic

In honor of my blog's redesign, I hereby confer upon you a new post.

You're welcome.

Let's begin with a story from my childhood.  Yes, that's right.  Another one.  Let's face it, folks-- I had a long and eventful childhood, and I retain useless memories like Arnold Schwarzenneger retains a very good lawyer: just in case.

This particular gem has stuck with me through the years because it was a realization that was relevant to my daily life.  You see, at my little elementary school, we got an hour of recess every day.  As a child, I utilized every moment of my time outside, as you may remember from previous posts.

One day, I was playing with a group of similarly adventurous children, when we decided to go past the boundary.  This was a big no-no.  But all the teachers were occupied watching the littlest kids struggle with the monkey bars, and all the high grass looked like a huge adventure waiting to happen.  So, like the intrepid explorers of olde, we stepped over the log benches and into the unknown.

We frolicked around in the grass for almost the entire hour of recess, until a teacher realized that half the first grade class was missing, and came to find us.  For most of my classmates, it was too late.

Don't worry-- nobody dies in this blog post.  They just get really bad boo-boos.

You see, the next morning, when everyone arrived at school, they had all these welts and red spots all over them.  Our teacher took one look and diagnosed it as poison ivy.  But I, who had been the forerunner of them all (no, literally, we played Follow-the-Leader, and the Leader was moi), did not have a single spot to show for my midday romp through the forbidden grass.

Later on in life, I learned that through an accident of genetics, no one in my family is allergic to poison ivy, unlike the majority of the human species.  But at the time, I was SuperGirl.

This is where I change the subject in a way that seems completely random, but which will eventually circle back around to the original story, thereby making this a (somewhat) coherent blog post.

I got pulled over tonight.  By a cop.  With blue flashy lights and everything.  Also, I was five feet away from the gate to my apartment complex.

Somehow, I have only been pulled over four times in my life.  That may seem like a lot for a 22-year-old, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I break traffic laws.  Like a lot.  Particularly speeding.  Sometimes I run lights late at night.  And sometimes I roll right on through stop signs (like I did tonight).  But usually, I don't get caught.

Incident #1: The first time I got pulled over, I was speeding over the Interstate in Monteagle, a little podunk town where everybody, but everybody, speeds over the Interstate.  At least 50 (in a 35).  Anyway, I was going 50, and I got pulled over.  BrownFriend was in the car with me, so it was super-embarrassing that I got pulled over for the first time with someone there to witness my shame.  However, at the time, I was not too concerned about it.

I had just found out that my mother had breast cancer.  Again.  So you can imagine my distress.  BrownFriend and I were actually on the way to the CVS so that I could buy pink hair dye, to show my solidarity.  I was crying.  I probably shouldn't have been driving while I was crying, but... oh, well.

So the cop pulls me over, tells me how fast I was going, sees that I am incredibly upset, and takes pity on me.

End Result: No Ticket.

Incident #2: Same place, about a year later.  Remember how everybody speeds over the Interstate?  Still true.  And I was following one such everybody to a Retirement Home.  I had never had occasion to visit the Old Folks' Home before now, so I had to keep up with this OneSuchEverybody.  We go 50 in a 35.  Blue lights hit my rear view mirror.

In my car with me are three very scared little freshmen, members of my a capella choir (which is going to perform at the Old Folks' Home).  They sit timidly and make themselves as small as possible as -- yes-- the very same cop who had previously pardoned me strolled up to the window.

I believe I squeaked out something along the lines of, "Evening, officer."  I was just proud that I wasn't crying this time.

I explain the situation, that I would be lost with OneSuchEverybody, and he laughingly admits that it was a "crapshoot between which of [us] [he] was going to pull over," since OneSuch was not only speeding, but also had a tail light out.

End Result: No Ticket.

Incident #3: We'll be back in the Music City for this one.  There is a spot on one of our main roads where it is really easy to speed, since the stretch of road is levelling out from a rather substantial little hill.  Unless you ride your brake on the way down, you'll probably be speeding by the time you reach this little patch of highway.  Naturally, I am not one who is often inclined to ride her brake.  Also, it was 3am.  So I was speeding.

Blue lights.  Little siren blip.  I pull over, shut my engine off.

A red-haired cop with braces -- braces!  And he was at least 30... -- comes to my window.  I hand him all the usual documents and cards.  We had a very simple conversation that went something like:

Officer: Do you know how fast you were going?

Me: Yep.  55.  [In a 45.]

Officer: Oh.  Um... do you have any medical or other reason to be going so fast?

Me: Nope.

Officer: Oh.  Uh, okay.  Wait here.

He runs my license through his little whatever-they-have-that-runs-those-things.  He comes back.

Officer: You've never gotten a ticket before, have you?

Me: Nope.

Officer: You'd like to keep it that way, I'll bet, wouldn't you?

Me: Uhhhhh, yeah!

Officer: Slow down, okay?

He handed me my license back.

End Result: No Ticket.

Incident #4: Tonight, after getting off work at 11pm, having slipped magnificently (flying shoes and all) and hurt my tailbone rather badly, I was in a little bit of a hurry getting home.  Normally I am quite careful on the road I take to my apartment complex.  It's a speed trap, and PurpleFriend can attest to the fact that police cars often camp out by the one stop sign along the road just to ticket innocent people who maybe roll a little bit instead of fully stopping.

I rolled through that stop sign like it was a yield sign that was just pretending.

Blue lights, all that jazz.

I pulled over, turned off my engine, got out my license.  However, he asked for my registration also, and when I opened my glove compartment to get it, my whole glove compartment fell off the dashboard.  I fished my registration out of the wreckage and handed it to the police officer, who explained that I really ought to stop at the stop sign.

When he returned two moments later, he handed me my license, my registration, asked me if I knew which stop sign he was talking about, and upon hearing that I did, bid me a good night.

End Result: No Ticket.

I wish a cop would give me a ticket.  I deserve a ticket.  I feel pretty guilty about the fact that I have gotten away with this four times.

But, in the end, I guess it's not just poison ivy I'm immune to.