John Wayne

Here are a few lines from Paula Cole’s song “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?”:

Where is my John Wayne?
Where is my prairie son?
Where is my happy ending?
Where have all the Cowboys gone?
Where is my Marlboro Man?
Where is my shiny gun?
Where is my lone ranger?
Where have all the cowboys gone?

I guess that I have not accomplished what I started out to do. Being John Wayne, Marlboro Man, Lone Ranger, A Cowboy, or in other words, A Hero. What I thought was right is still wrong, things that appeared to be getting better were just a mirage.

But maybe the game isn’t over yet. I will share a moment from my glory days: A team in our district had big bad ass fullback, behind a big fat ass line. They ran the option. My job as the middle linebacker was to hit the fullback every time, cause with the option, we never knew if he would get the ball or not. Either they were stupid or just didn’t see what was going on, because whenever I hit this guy, or should I say, he hit me, I went flying. And the times he did have the ball, it was a big gain. If they would have just given the ball to him the entire game, they would have won. At halftime I wanted to come out, I was tired of getting my ass kicked. We were leading by 5 or 6 points in the last minutes of the game. They had the ball and was driving for the winning score. Again, all they had to do was keep running over the top of me and they would have won. Then they did something nobody expected. They threw a pass. I, as the middle linebacker turned and sprinted back into my drop, seen the receiver coming across the middle, stepped in front, picked off the pass and headed down the sidelines for an easy touchdown. I didn’t actually make the easy touchdown; their track star tailback caught me, but who cares, the game was over. I was the HERO!!

So maybe my game of life isn’t over either. Maybe I can still pull a game winner out of my ass. Maybe I’ve failed before, maybe nobody believes in me, but guess what? I believe in myself. I know I can win the game, be the Hero, be John Wayne. And like the Lone Ranger, I can do it, even if by myself. (Seems like he had a horse and an indian friend he could trust, but the metaphor works)

I have a vision of what I want to accomplish. I have steps in place to get there, maybe it won’t happen overnight, I know this. I feel better going into this January than I have felt starting off a new year in a long, long time. Maybe its all New Years rhetoric, and people can tune me out like the teacher on Charlie Brown. But right now, I’m going public, I’m going on record, I will Win the game, I will be the Hero. And when I accomplish this and turn to those who doubted me, I will look them in the eyes and say….”thanks for your support”