Freddogg Off The Chain

There is a built in pause between courageousness and cowardliness. I prefer to call it intelligent thought an instantaneous reflection that quick action can result in an even quicker death. For example, if you are 30 years old and race to a burning car to pull out a trapped family and the car blows up in your face sending a Mercedes emblem through your skull then you used 30 years of experience to run into a one second death.

I read in a New York paper where two Puerto Rican girls on a flight from Newark to San Juan began to fight as soon as the plane lifted off the ground. The Flight Attendants were split between make up concerns and gay guys who know better than to bitch slap an angry Puerto Rican Hoochie Momma. The plane diverted directly to New York and landed where Sky Marhsalls from the Lesbian weight lifters swat team came on to remove them.

Now if I were on that plane with all my experience breaking up cat fights as a high school teacher I’m grabbing my pillow for protection and hope these girls don’t end up in my lap because I know it’s an unreasonable fear but fighting Puerto Rican women evokes the image of switch blades and they can get you dead in a hurry.

Back in the sultry summer of 1975 I was sitting on an ocean lifeguard stand with another teacher type about dead no air 3p.m just looking for a breeze or ripple of water. There was a little girl on a canvas raft and we let her drift out far because the water was non dangerous to downright dull.

Then in a flash a big fin broke to the surface creating white water behind her raft. It was there, then it was gone. We stood up and blew our whistles and waved for her to come in. She paddled and we waved some more. She was as calm as the water, needed no reassurance and we just kept taxing her towards the wet sand.

I leter posed thie interrogative to my stand partner, ”Was that a cowardly act? Should we have swam out there lending assistance and offering reassurance.”?

We agreed that at the second sighting of a big fin if we continued to offer semaphore to a 12 year old girl under, let’s say ,hammerhead attack, it could be construed by those in the lifesaving business as less than boldly heroic behavior.

Speaking of heroes my grandmother used to say, ”He who hesitates ain’t going!” She’s right.

Peace Freddogg