Joe Doakes, late of Como Park, emails:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nI guess a guy got arrested for interrupting the State of the Union address. A parent, protesting the shameful way his son\u2019s life was wasted in the retreat from Afghanistan. I know soldiers are brave, cops and firefighters, too. But I\u2019ve only ever witnessed one act of raw bravery in real life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
30 years ago, I moved my family to outstate Minnesota to start a career as a lawyer. I was in my office one morning when the receptionist said, \u201cThere\u2019s someone to see you.\u201d It was a kid from my son\u2019s hockey team, call him John, wearing a three-piece suit with a necktie in his hand. \u201cToday is team pictures and we\u2019re supposed to dress up. Can you help me with this?\u201d he asked, holding out his necktie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a small town. I knew about John\u2019s family situation. Father drank away the family business and left. Mother worked double shifts waitressing. John had nobody to show him how to tie a necktie. Where do you go to learn that? Who wears neckties anymore? Lawyers. And he knew one, me, from hockey. So, John cut class to walk uptown to the law firm carrying his necktie to ask for help so he\u2019d look nice for the team photo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Can you imagine the guts that took?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course I helped him. And then drove him back so he\u2019d be on time. The team photo came out great. Can\u2019t see much of John\u2019s suit \u2013 tall kid in the back \u2013 but the knot of his necktie is as perfect as the look of pride on his face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bravest man I ever met was a 17-year-old kid.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Words like “bravery” and “courage” have been devalued as badly as “fascism”, lately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But I think the kid’d get my vote. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes, late of Como Park, emails: I guess a guy got arrested for interrupting the State of the Union address. A parent, protesting the shameful way his son\u2019s life was wasted in the retreat from Afghanistan. I know soldiers are brave, cops and firefighters, too. But I\u2019ve only ever witnessed one act of raw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-universe-and-everything"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87197"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87199,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87197\/revisions\/87199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}