Last night I had the opportunity to watch the new movie remake of He-Man, and I really enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek writing. Like many of you, I grew up on Saturday Morning cartoons. I had an itemized schedule of Mystery Machine’s and Purple Gorilla’s in dune buggies, a Waskilly Wabbit and a hunter with a stutter all listed out starting early in the morning and ending at 11:00 when I was finally kicked outside to act out all those story lines. And, among them was this cartoon “He-Man”! I was a bit old for it when it came out, and from an adult standpoint it was one of the most ridiculously named storylines ever created, but dang I loved the idea of having a hero come to the rescue.
Perhaps there is just comfort knowing who the good guys are and easily identifying the bad guys to settle a heart and mind. The bad guys were always portrayed monstrously by their actions, their words, their appearance. The heroes were strong, pure, caring, and always helped people by opposing evil. The bad guys always wanted people hurt, dominated, exploited. Scooby-Doo always came out the hero and the bad guys always lost. Saturday morning Ethics were easy to understand.
Then, I grew older and I realized that the morality of reality seemed extraordinarily flexible. I was told that the weak were weak because they chose to be weak, the poor were poor because they chose to be poor. The sick were sick…. you get the point. Somehow the absolute ethics of my Saturday morning education didn’t reflect in my life or experience outside that television, no matter how much I longed for it.
In time we are asked to change our heroes. Superman is crushed by cryptonite, Hulk is ruined by his temper, and as much as I want to believe that there is something greater than this world, God still somehow has babies born with defects, children who live in pain, parents who lose their will to go on in this world. But we yearn for that hero who made everything ok in the end that we loved on Saturday morning television.
We yearn so much that we forget that those stories were just stories for children. The people we lift up to solve all our problems are just skin and bone humans, and if they tell us they are our answer to all that hurts, well…
I’ve struggled to understand how relatively smart people could fall for a leadership that has visited the depredations upon the world that this one seems to enjoy. I’ve thought them idiots, racist pigs, deplorable trash and fools, especially as the truth of this man’s toxic morality comes more and more to light. He’s raped, stolen, and killed to cover his crimes and yet he is loved by a troubling number of people. It’s not logical, it’s not rational.
But outside the horrible scum that have latched onto his leprously-stained skirts in this bid for power at any cost administration follow a horde of broken and hurt people who somehow thought this con-artist cared about anyone but himself. They are the children who sat before the television on Saturday mornings and believed somehow that the blond-haired hero with the great propaganda was here to save them. They drank the cool-aid, bought the shirts – and the hats, they believed the hype because they believed the hurt. They are not going to release that hope easily once given and because of that any atrocity is forgiven.
I fearfully believe this Land of Liberty is lost for an inability to understand right or wrong. The utopian hopeful are mocked by a populace that have come to love their chains as they fight to defend those who would make them chattel because they fear that the people hoping to release those bonds have ulterior motives. I share their fear, in part, because I know that they who thirst for power will shed their skin to walk amongst the hopeful seeking a new path. Morality is cheap for those who mock ethics, and people broken and drowning will destroy anything for hope of salvation.
-Randy
Scottie's Playtime 
There are no superheroes, no gods, no blonde men to come to the rescue. All you have are yourselves. If you don’t step up to the plate, no one is going to do it for you.
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Hi Rawgod. You are right, there is no one coming to our rescue, more’s the pity.
Randy
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Hi Randy. As I wrote to Rawgod. I disagree. You came to my rescue when I needed a hero. Sometimes it is great to meet your heroes. You find out they are grand individuals. Hugs
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Hi Rawgod. You are sort of correct and not correct. See, you said no one will come to the rescue and all we have is ourselves. I have to tell you of three heroes of mine who stepped up when they did not have to and saved me. All of them saved my life in their own way.
The first was the farmer that I was working for starting when I was 15. I went to work for him because I had a crush on his son. But when school got out when I was at the end of my 11th grade year I got a beating I thought would kill me. It was one of the worst and I fled to go hide in the farmer’s barn. He found me and I begged him to let me stay there in the summer fearing I would be killed if I went back to the house of my abusers. He had a different idea. He offered to send me to his church’s boarding school for the summer and then the coming school year. I doubted my abusers would allow it, I was still being regularly used even by the hellspawn who did not live there; they would just come visit and use me, and it was normal for them. For 17 year old me it was hell.
He only wanted to know if I would go and obey the rules, I said yes, and he said leave the rest to him. He did go talk to my “family”. He came back and told me I could go home, pack my clothing, including any dress clothing I had and he would pick me up in the morning. I said I was afraid they would kill me or hurt me more. He said no, that no one would touch me and if they did I was to either call him or escape and come to him, but he felt it would be OK. He was correct. I went back, no one spoke to me or touched me. I packed what I needed into trash bags and the one suitcase I had. He picked me up in the morning. I wonder what he said to them that made a known violent brawler like my adopting male back down and let me go without at least using me or beating me one last time.
The second hero in my life was Ron. He not only helped me more from being very self-destructive and has been the most positive influence on my life. He has been my husband, my friend, the person who pours affection on me, the person who hears me cry out at night and wakes me often holding me until the sobs stop and for the rest of the night. He is the one who moved us far from the abusers and stood between them and me when they came back into my life, telling them the rules to be in my life and being also willing to enforce them.
The third hero is Randy. I have written about Randy’s heroic actions to save my life in 2013 / 2014. Randy and I became friends, and he saw my falling apart in late 2013. By March of 2014 I gave up. I wouldn’t give up and sucide, but I wouldn’t try to live. I got up in the morning, showered, dressed, and would lay back on the bed waiting to die. I did not eat, and I did not leave the room for anything other than necessary doctor appointments. Then as my doctors advised Ron how to get me back into living, I started self harming again. It got bad. One day Ron woke up as I was slicing up my forearm, and he saw the blood running down my arm. He was in an painic not understanding why I was doing such a thing. I showed him my prior scars on my wrists, arms, and legs. He told my doctors, and they said to hide all the knives in the house. I had my favorite jackknife hidden from him, and even though it was not the perfect one, it did the job.
Then Randy found out; I don’t know if I told him or Ron did. All I know is Randy was working 12 hour shifts at a plastic molding factory, he oversaw the night shift and did multiple jobs depending on what needed doing and who called in sick. He started calling me first thing as he left work. He left his phone ringer on and begged me to call him anytime I was feeling sad or wanting to hurt myself. He understood why I did it and did not condemn me or berate me, but he worked hard to show me there were other ways than slicing my own skin. Randy spent some days spent 5 or 6 hours on the phone with me denying himself the sleep he needed to work his shifts. He took every call I made and let me talk, sob, and cry on the phone to him and never shut me off or out. He would wake up and call me if he did not hear from me during the day. Then he supported what Ron and the doctors figured out how to get me going again—my candlemaking. Some days I will tell you about that effort. My point is Randy spent over a year on the phone, texting, and on the computer saving my life when all I wanted was to give up. But he wouldn’t let me, and he is still my second biggest supporter.
So yes I have met three of my heroes, and they are humans who esisit. And I love them all, including the man who wanted to put me through the SDA seminary to be a preacher. But he did not know I was gay, I already knew I was and due to my childhood abuse I knew I enjoyed having same gender sex.
Randy really writes grand posts doesn’t he! Hugs
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