The Age Of Heroes Never Dies

The age of heroes is something that I heard in the Justice League movie. They claimed it had long since died. Only in the movies did the age of heroes die. In the real world, the age of heroes is something that lives on every day in our world. There are so many heroes in the world that if we could for a while focus on them instead of the mistakes, the intentional evils, the problems of the world, maybe it would uplift people.

Perhaps one of the most uplifting characters of the 20th century was Superman, the quintessential hero. Superman stood for everything that most of us should. Truth, Justice, and the American way. Not necessarily our America, but what America could have been. Superman, A.K.A. Clark Kent, had a moral code. Granted that was because of the writers and creators of the character, but that code translated through nearly one hundred years of comics, television shows, and movies.

We've all had heroes. From our favorite cartoon to our favorite wrestler, to our favorite movie hero to our favorite story hero. We meet people every day that are heroes, oftentimes without knowing them, or being able to recognize them for their acts. When you're driving down the road and see a police cruiser, you see someone that is most likely a hero. Sure, they have a bad reputation at times because of the few bad eggs in the bunch. Most, however, have never done anything to harm someone while in the course of their official duties. Truthfully, one of my heroes was a police officer I "met" at sixteen years old. I was on the wrong side of the law that day but he went out of his way to straighten me out.

Men and women, every day, put their selves at risk of not making it home and it isn't just the men and women of the police departments around the country. Hundreds of thousands of heroic figures in this country help to keep it going.

Joliet Illinois, the home of Joliet State Prison, is closed and abandoned. Little has been done with the prison since the television series Prison Break ended filming and now it serves as a tourist attraction for tours. With over 2000 prisoners housed there, there were never more than sixty to seventy uniformed staff at a time and normally, quite a few less. When thinking about prison staff, they are keeping the devil at the gates and doing so with little resources, just a six-week training class, and no weapons to defend themselves with when being attacked. Any prison officer that walks into a cell house with a couple of hundred inmates, normally facing 80 to 1 odds, can only be called heroic.

This year, in 2021, there have already been numerous civilian and uniformed staff in prisons around the country that have been beaten, stabbed, raped, and in a few cases, murdered. Yet, those dedicated men and women continue to walk back through those gates to keep the worst of society separated from the rest of us while trying to help rehabilitate those that could still be salvaged and turned into good citizens.

What other heroes might there be in our world that simply aren't getting the recognition they deserve. Let's face facts, we all know that some businesses give away free coffee to police officers. Firefighters might get a discount on things. Have you ever been in line and watched a nurse get a free cup of coffee or a discount on anything because she was in her work clothes. Yet, during the pandemic, our hospitals, clinics, emergency rooms, and nursing homes were being overrun by Covid-19, who was there.

Many other heroic people out there helped to keep our country moving during 2020 amidst Covid-19 surges as the pandemic raged through our country. Gas stations stayed open. Their employees didn't receive bonuses or federal funds. Grocery stores and Walmart were open for us when we needed them, and while we might have had to adjust our routines, we were able to go on with our lives and still find what we needed.

So, as the world slowly ticks its' way back to whatever normal will look like, remember that what we see in the news isn't always the story. There are many other stories that aren't being told on an average news day. There are heroic people in the world, all around us. They might be the neighbor you meet that was a war hero on the cover of Time Magazine (yes this happened to me), the cop down the street that starts an after school ball program, the nurse that caught Covid and then went back to work, or even someone closer to you, like a parent or loved one. Don't forget to thank them when you get the chance. The only way the age of heroes really dies is if those that need heroes allow it to die.

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