“Reluctant Hero”
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the cold, snowy, windy island of Nantucket! Very good to be with you once again on this Fourth Day of March, 2016, Friday morning ‘down on the docks’ of Historic Hyannis Harbor. A famous port where many a dignitary (and every other walk of Life!), has walked, dined, destined, toured, lead, sailed, sunbathed, fished, surfed, partied, relaxed, unwound, fell in love, got slam dunked face first on a side walk, “…no, no Ted, skip that, “no one gets kicked in the head with an iron boot anymore…!” (credit the late, great Robert Stack playing “Captain “Rex Kramer”–a successful, gritty, tough-guy airline pilot who helps “Ted” bring the wounded plane down to the ground in the classic 1980 film “Airplane!”).
Also starring in this cinematic spoof on life imitating art imitating life? In no particular order are some fine people who may or may not have already gone on to a much, much better plane than this. Mentioning all these fine folks for no particular reason other than to investigate if there is any other work out there other than “crisis acting gigs”? What say you high and mighty members of “the” Academy? Here they mostly all are in no particular order… Kareem Abul-Jabbar, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves, Julie Haggerty, Robert Hays, Loren Patterson, Stephen Stucker (as “Johnny”), “Otto” (the over sexed auto-pilot), and of course, Barbara Billingsley of “Leave it to Beaver” fame in the fifties and sixties? Who famously stated on the plane trying to help a passenger with a food poisoning problem with ‘the fish’…, “…chump don’t want no help, chump don’t get no help!” …
When things looking the worst for “Ted” and all the other passengers on the plane, “Dr. Rumack” (Leslie Nielsen), walks up to the front of the wounded bird to join the reluctant hero who he knows was a former pilot in ‘the war‘.
Ted states: “I know what you’re going to say doc so just save your breath….”
“…well, I don’t have anything to say, you’ve done the best you could. You really have, the best you could. You can’t expect to win ‘em all. But, I want to tell you something I’ve kept to myself all these years. I was in the war myself, medical corps. I was on late duty one night when they brought in a badly wounded pilot from one of the raids. He could barely talk. He looked up at me and said, ‘the odds were against us up there but we went in anyway, I’m glad. Captain made the right decision’. The pilot’s name was George Zip.”
Ted: “George Zip said that?”
“The last thing he said to me, “Doc”, sometimes, when the crew is up against it, and the breaks are beating the boys, tell them to get out there and give it all they got and win just one for the Zipper. I don’t know where I’ll be then, “Doc”, he said, but I won’t smell too good that’s for sure…”
Ted: “Excuse me doc, I’ve got a plane to land.”
Have a “super” week end folks and don’t let the bastards get you down! (p.s. the title of this ‘message in a bottle’ came from the book title of the same name, “Reluctant Hero”, a biography of the 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy; written by one Chris Mathews, of “Haaaard Ball” fame, only MSNBC! Cheers!
PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
