Everyday Heroic Hustles
Keeping the Gears Turning
Just One Guy’s Opinion Around Town By Guy Zetta
Wow. I can’t help but notice the increasing frequency of recent stories about the everyday workinfolk reluctantly stepping up to be unsung heroes. Of people stepping forward to lead and improve the lives of everyone around them.
Maybe it’s just regular human nature. Maybe it’s the Recession-Meter keeping us on our toes. Maybe it’s courageous citizens stepping into the breaches. Maybe it’s a generation of reluctant heroes rising to meet our collective crumbling with ingenuity and grit. Maybe it’s that unshakeable Orange Forest spirit shining through.
The Bus Driver’s Dilemma
For instance. Take last week’s quick-thinking heroics on the 23 City of Orange Forest Transit Authority (COFTA) route. When systematic inefficiencies threatened to strand dozens of working parents, students, and elderly commuters, a 78-year-old retiree — armed with nothing more than a lifetime of punctuality and a keen eye for schedules — took decisive action. This noble soul made the executive decision to take the reins of a city bus, ensuring the route stayed on schedule and the passengers arrived at their destinations ahead of schedule. An old-timer like that probably has decades of experience navigating the city’s streets. Who better to step up when efficiency is on the line? Sure. It might’ve ruffled a few feathers, but do you hear any of the dozens of passengers complaining? Instead of all this pearl-clutching, I’m sitting here scratching my head, wondering when adhering to a broken system became more virtuous than fixing it
Calvinball’s Unlikely Most Valuable Scrumbler
That turbofan running into the middle of the recent Calvinball scrumble? That wasn’t reckless, disruptive chaos just for the sake of it. Sure. He gave security a coronary. But let’s be real here. When’s the last time you witnessed that kind of raw, unadulterated fandom? For a glorious frozen moment, that was participatory democracy in action. That person didn’t interrupt the game. They became the game. By displaying their unadulterated excitement for the entire crowd to enjoy, the flag-capturing gambit re-ignited the crowd’s waning enthusiasm for a sport that, let’s face it, has gotten complacent since the Mask-Off Scrumble. Why would anyone think of this person as anything less than this year’s MVS is beyond me.
One Martyr’s Embers Fans One Million Wonders
Now. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention young Cecil Hayes. It’s a tragic story, no two ways about it. But let’s not reduce his story solely to its final frame, and let us remember the spirit that propelled him and fueled his drive to make a difference. When the Nouvelle Vire reignited, Cecil didn’t see a chemical inferno. He saw a problem he thought he could solve. His dozen water jugs weren’t a cartoonishly naive response to a life-threatening ecological disaster but a natural instinct of a kid raised on stories of Orangeforester resilience, where “acting first, worrying later” is baked into this city’s DNA.
And as the Orange Forest Fire Fighters continue strategizing ways to contain and extinguish the riverfire, they’ll tell you that Cecil’s commendable efforts and the spirit that propelled him have added fuel for their fiery fight.
Forging a Frozen Flying Fight
Speaking of fighting. I also can’t help but notice that it sure seems like we’ve been awfully preoccupied lately with yapping about fighting and flying and freezing. But I think these flights of fancy all skip over the main F: forging. Forging ahead, shaking a leg, plowing along, hauling ass. That’s what we do here. We are the City of Big Forges, after all.
The founders who built this city and all the esteemed leaders who have successfully steered our unprecedented success for this past century knew one important secret: Progress isn’t about waiting for permission. It’s about grabbing the bull — or bus wheel or the water jug — and getting the job done. Hell. Acting first, worrying later might as well be the city’s motto.
I think it’s safe to say that the institutions aren’t crumbling. They’re merely getting crowdsourced by you and you. After all, Cecil Hayes didn’t die because he thought he was a hero. He died because of his firm and fierce belief that heroism isn’t a solo sprint — it’s a relay. And in his passing, he has passed his baton of bravery to the next unsung hero.
I’ve always been a fan of Descartes and his no-nonsense writing style. In his First Methods, he uses an analogy about rebuilding a house from secure foundations, which includes the idea of needing a temporary abode while he reconstructs his own cranial house, as well as the necessary scaffolding made of doubt and reasoning to serve as the framework supporting the construction of his new cranial home.
But when we tear down our secure foundations and the structures meant to scaffold society in the meantime splinter, the load falls on you to quietly shoulder the burden of weaving the threads of our world lines into a tapestry bigger and grander than ourselves. So here’s to all of the unsung, everyday heroes keeping the gears turning and the city humming. They might not get it right every time, but they’re out there striving and sacrificing for all of us. In these tremulous times, that spirit of personal responsibility is worth singing about.
