We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
As most American are “sheltering in place”, and the cloud of COVID-19 is slowing evaporating from China, I think that many people are stressed, and feel uncertain about their lives. I really do not think that the $1000 gift from Trump in the $2 trillion dollar emergency bill is going to amount to anything Mostly it’s the rich bankers that are going to pocket millions of dollar. Most Americans realize this. So this results in fear and uncertainty.
It need not be that way. There was a time when America was self-reliant and self-contained. Men went about and conducted their business freely. They never had to ask permission, report their actions or pay taxes to the American government. They were on their own and self-reliant.
They were heroes.
Here are some videos of normal “everyday” people performing heroic actions. I do hope that they can inspire you to be the best that you can be.
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Boy helps old man.
An old man collapses while crossing the street. But a young boy goes forth and helps him up. This is a good story and a great lesson that we all need to take heed of. Good going son. Good going.
Here’s a woman who braves the engulfing fire that has trapped young children inside a car. Does she pause? Yes, but then she steel’s herself and brave the heat, the fire and the smoke. She does what ever she needs to. She must go and save the baby. It’s her sole purpose and focus.
Purse snatcher tries to make a get away. Unlucky for him that there are others in the parking lot who are aware and ready to deal with this miscreant properly. Nothing like a spare shopping cart to take care of problems.
Firemen rescue trapped family.
Firemen are all heroes. Here we see some Chinese firemen rescuing a family that is trapped inside a burning building. This is why they exist. This is their job, however that does not mean that they are not heroes. They are and their actions are heroic.
Rescue of a boy in the street.
This is a head-slap event. What the Hell is this kid thinking? He’s going to run out in the middle of an 11-lane super highway? Lordy! You need to keep your eyes on the children at all times, that’s for certain.
Emergency CPR.
An old man collapses on the sidewalk. A stranger sees this and immediately starts emergency CPR on him. It’s all captured on film. This is what heroes do. They don’t get on CNN and talk about how great they are. They live quiet lives and help others when the need and time comes.
Climb up to rescue the children.
Bravery is what we see in hindsight. True heroes react immediately without thinking. Here we have a man crawling on his 6th floor porch to get to the apartment above to rescue some screaming children.
Prevent an accident.
Kids do the strangest things. Like perhaps riding out into a busy traffic road. What are you going to do? Allow him to get squished and turn into jelly, or are you going to do something about it, eh?
Catch a falling child.
OK. So you are walking down a sidewalk and you hear frantic screaming up above you. You look up and it seems like someone is outside the building scrambling, but that they might fall. What are you going to do? Maybe call 9-11? Maybe pretend nothing is going on?
I hope that you enjoyed this post. I have others that are similar to it in my Rufus Index here…
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This story was copyrighted in 1951 by Ray Bradbury, and presented here under Article 22 of China’s Copyright Law. Ray Bradbury is one of my personal heroes and his writings greatly influenced me in ways that I am only just now beginning to understand.
Introduction
For years I had amassed a well worn, and dusty collection of Ray Bradbury paperbacks that I would pick up and read for pleasure and inspiration. Later, when I left the United States, and moved to China, I had to leave my treasured books behind. Sigh.
It is very difficult to come across Ray Bradbury books in China. When ever I find one, I certainly snatch it up. Cost is no object when it comes to these masterpieces. At one time, I must have had five books containing this story.
Credit to the wonderful people at Mother Earth News for posting it where a smuck like myself can read it within China. And, of course, credit to the great master; Ray Bradbury for providing this work of art for our inspiration and pleasure.
Full Text
Here is the full text of the masterpiece. I will let the reader read it and enjoy it.
The Pedestrian
To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o’clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do.
He would stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of sidewalk in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; he was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected, he would stride off, sending patterns of frosty air before him like the smoke of a cigar.
Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.
Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomblike building was still open.
Mr. Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look, and march on, his feet making no noise on the lumpy walk.
For long ago he had wisely changed to sneakers when strolling at night, because the dogs in intermittent squads would parallel his journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and lights might click on and faces appear and an entire street be startled by the passing of a lone figure, himself, in the early November evening.
On this particular evening he began his journey in a westerly direction, toward the hidden sea.
There was a good crystal frost in the air; it cut the nose and made the lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside; you could feel the cold light going on and off, all the branches filled with invisible snow.
He listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction, and whistled a cold quiet whistle between his teeth, occasionally picking up a leaf as he passed, examining its skeletal pattern in the infrequent lamplights as he went on, smelling its rusty smell.
“Hello, in there,” he whispered to every house on every side as he moved. “What’s up tonight on Channel 4, Channel 7, Channel 9? Where are the cowboys rushing, and do I see the United States Cavalry over the next hill to the rescue?”
The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in midcountry.
If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets, for company.
“What is it now?” he asked the houses, noticing his wrist watch.
“Eight-thirty P.M.? Time for a dozen assorted murders? A quiz? A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?”
Was that a murmur of laughter from within a moon-white house? He hesitated, but went on when nothing more happened.
He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of sidewalk.
The cement was vanishing under flowers and grass.
In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not once in all that time.
He came to a cloverleaf intersection which stood silent where two main highways crossed the town.
During the day it was a thunderous surge of cars, the gas stations open, a great insect rustling and a ceaseless jockeying for position as the scarabbeetles, a faint incense puttering from their exhausts, skimmed homeward to the far directions.
But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry season, all stone and bed and moon radiance.
He turned back on a side street, circling around toward his home.
He was within a block of his destination when the lone car turned a corner quite suddenly and flashed a fierce white cone of light upon him.
He stood entranced, not unlike a night moth, stunned by the illumination, and then drawn toward it.
A metallic voice called to him: “Stand still. Stay where you are! Don’t move!” He halted. “Put up your hands!”
“But-” he said.
“Your hands up! Or we’ll Shoot!”
The police, of course, but what a rare, incredible thing; in a city of three million, there was only one police car left, wasn’t that correct?
Ever since a year ago, 2052, the election year, the force had been cut down from three cars to one.
Crime was ebbing; there was no need now for the police, save for this one lone car wandering and wandering the empty streets.
“Your name?” said the police car in a metallic whisper.
He couldn’t see the men in it for the bright light in his eyes.
“Leonard Mead,” he said.
“Speak up!”
“Leonard Mead!”
“Business or profession?”
“I guess you’d call me a writer.”
“No profession,” said the police car, as if talking to itself.
The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle thrust through chest.
“You might say that, ” said Mr. Mead.
He hadn’t written in years. Magazines and books didn’t sell any more.
Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy.
The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.
“No profession,” said the phonograph voice, hissing. “What are you doing out?”
“Walking,” said Leonard Mead.
“Walking!”
“Just walking,” he said simply, but his face felt cold.
“Walking, just walking, walking?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Walking where? For what?”
“Walking for air. Walking to see.”
“Your address!”
“Eleven South Saint James Street.”
“And there is air in your house, you have an air conditioner, Mr. Mead?”
“Yes.”
“And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?”
“No.”
“No?” There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation.
“Are you married, Mr. Mead?”
“No.”
“Not married,” said the police voice behind the fiery beam, The moon was high and clear among the stars and the houses were gray and silent.
“Nobody wanted me,” said Leonard Mead with a smile.
“Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to!”
Leonard Mead waited in the cold night.
“Just walking, Mr. Mead?”
“Yes.”
“But you haven’t explained for what purpose.”
“I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk.”
“Have you done this often?”
“Every night for years.”
The police car sat in the center of the street with its radio throat faintly humming.
“Well, Mr. Mead,” it said.
“Is that all?” he asked politely.
“Yes,” said the voice. “Here.” There was a sigh, a pop. The back door of the police car sprang wide. “Get in.”
“Wait a minute, I haven’t done anything!”
“Get in.”
“I protest!”
“Mr. Mead.”
He walked like a man suddenly drunk. As he passed the front window of the car he looked in. As he had expected, there was no one in the front seat, no one in the car at all.
“Get in.”
He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars. It smelled of riveted steel. It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic. There was nothing soft there.
“Now if you had a wife to give you an alibi,” said the iron voice.
“But-“
“Where are you taking me?”
The car hesitated, or rather gave a faint whirring click, as if information, somewhere, was dropping card by punch-slotted card under electric eyes. “To the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies.”
He got in. The door shut with a soft thud.
The police car rolled through the night avenues, flashing its dim lights ahead. They passed one house on one street a moment later, one house in an entire city of houses that were dark, but this one particular house had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness.
“That’s my house,” said Leonard Mead.
No one answered him.
The car moved down the empty river-bed streets and off away, leaving the empty streets with the empty side-walks, and no sound and no motion all the rest of the chill November night.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
Posts about the Changes in America
America is going through a period of change. Change is good… that is, after it occurs. Often however, there are large periods of discomfort as the period of adjustment takes place. Here are some posts that discuss this issue.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come and enjoy a read or two as well.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
