Heroes I Know: Stuck in the Mud

“Oh, you can’t get stuck in the mud if you still have two tires on pavement,” I assured my son moments before I managed to sink my SUV into mushy red clay right up to my front axel.
Luckily for me, one of my heroes happened to be nearby. Actually, he and his wife were hosting a birthday party for twenty or so of their son’s friends. My stuck car probably looked like a piece of cake compared to chaperoning that exuberant, energetic event.
I keep a short list of heroes. I figure that’s why God gave us fingers; to keep count of things.
Phil is husband to one of my friends and dad to five. He is also uncle and next-door neighbor to his sister-in-law and her three kiddoes.
Yep, when her husband died in an accident, Phil and my friend invited her sister to move to East Texas and then prayed. Miraculously, the house next door suddenly became available.
So, Phil’s been on my short list- my five finger list- of heroes for a long time. Long before I got my car stuck in the mud.
He called a guy he knew and in moments I was rolling again. I’m betting the guy with the tow truck is on somebody’s short list of heroes, too. Just a guess, but he showed up with his son and sometimes you can tell which dads are heroes by the way they interact with their kids.
So, what does an average ole dad hero look like?
-Even on a day when he’s worn out and frazzled, he manages to stay fairly restrained when he has to correct his kids. This is sometimes a superhuman feat, by the way.
-He often has one or two of his own kids in tow, apprenticing them in an as-you-go kind of way about how gentlemen conduct themselves in the world.
-And, he has an encouraging word for the other young people he encounters along the way.
Just for future reference, it is scientifically proven that a car can be stuck in the mud even with two tires still on the pavement.
On the other hand, it seems that there is a trick to being the dad that keeps rolling along. The secret to being a hero in the circle of your life, I suspect, is to be the most heroic you can be in a single present moment. And then, just let the moments add up.
Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives and writes with a Texas twang. Comments are invited at http:/checklistcharlie.blogspot.com or cathykrafve@gmail.com.