When You Need to be Brave

I’m sure you know of acts bold and brave, battlefield and ballfield, but I will tell you of an act of bravery and bold action without equal. It happened when

I was one of four twelve-year-old boys running wild in a suburban neighborhood – the old kind – the kind where developers left some trees, and pine needles collected on shaded concrete driveways in September.

One of four boys left unsupervised, hanging out at Glenn’s house for a few hours on a late-May afternoon, flush with almost-summer excitement. We made prank phone calls to the town drunks, perused shoplifted Playboy magazines, and played the Rolling Stones loud on the big console stereo, the way our older brothers did.

Then we dared crazy Michael to run a lap around the house – outside – naked – which he did, and we crowned him ruler of our kingdom.   But only for about five minutes, until Glenn stripped down, went strolling out the front door at 4:00 PM.

We pushed the curtain back, watched wide-eyed through the big picture window. Watched Glenn ease down that driveway cool and collected as a safecracker, across the road, into the Hunnicutt’s front yard. He picked up a football, punted it over their house, sauntered back across the road, took the newspaper from the box, and pretended to read it as he strolled back to the house.These day’s I don’t do much that requires bravery, but when I do need to summon it, like when I ask for a raise, or need to take the car keys from an aging parent, I think of Glenn and that May afternoon in 1972 when we were twelve years old, when he sent a football sailing over the Hunnicutt’s house, and brought the newspaper in before his parents got home.