sorryless

Heroes: A Frank Edition

Frank @ Beach Walk Reflections24 Comments

Greetings to Marc’s Peeps. Frank here, formerly of A Frank Angle but currently at Beach Walk Impressions. Last week Marc asked me if I could do the next edition of Heroes. Of course, I agreed. Shortly thereafter, a family health issue developed, and time got away from me – then yesterday evening’s oh-shit moment arrived. Fortunately, I had some bookmarks. So here goes.

Embed from Getty Images

 

Marshall Helm (of Salem, Illinois) is a Vietnam veteran, a grandfather, and a person battling cancer. He walked his granddaughter to her stop, and after she boarded, the bus driver directed his attention to the smoke coming from a nearby house. He ran to the house and found flames in the garage. He opened the door, raced past flames, and his shouts awakened the sleeping homeowners. All safely escaped through the backdoor. The house is gone, but lives are safe. Just an example of a person with a sense of duty to others. Thank you, Mr. Helm.

 

Orion Jean (of Ft. Worth, Texas) decided he wanted to make the world a better place by spreading kindness with a message of wanting everyone to know that they are loved. Orion won the National Kindness Speech Award prize of $500 – and he takes the money to buy toys for hospitalized children. THEN, some community members pitched in. Now, Orion’s “Race for Kindness” has a goal of snack bags for a needy 100,000 people by Thanksgiving. For the record, Orion is 10 years old. I like this interview with him, plus I get to see one of my fav news personalities.

 

The Story: COVID-19 has impacted the world in 2020. On top of that, Californians and others in western states have been dealing with devastating wildfires. Berry Creek is a small, rural community of 1,200 people in California’s hilly, forested terrain. While Berry Creek volunteer firefighters fought the fire and helped residents evacuate, a fire destroyed the fire department station and the homes of six of the seven volunteer firefighters.

The Rest of the Story: Meanwhile, back in 2018 the father-daughter combo of Woody and Luna Faircloth started a nonprofit to supply RVs as temporary shelter for people who lost homes to the 2018’s massive Camp Fire. Today their organization is now known as EmergencyRV.org. Once they heard the news about the Berry Creek firefighters, they sprung into action to deliver RVs to shelter those who lost their homes. Although temporary, they now have a place they can call home. Who are the heroes? You decide. I couldn’t find a video of this story, but here’s an article.

Embed from Getty Images

 

Here’s one for the season – but more of a feel-good story than something heroic. Then again, Abigail, Theo, and Benny (of Salt Lake City, Utah) are hero candidates. No doubt in my mind that kids get what relationships are supposed to be much more than adults.

 

Fortunately, heroes are not by societal biases as age, gender, race, sexuality, religion, and nationality. Thanks to those mentioned here, in past editions, editions to come, heroes not mentioned, and all those who do it as a regular job.

To take you into the weekend, here’s a song for you and all the heroes. Mainly because I like the song. Besides, the images are wonderful. Have a great weekend, and in the words of Garrison Keillor, Be well, do good work, and keep in touch. PS: Don’t forget about your clocks this weekend – well – those who have to make an adjustment.

24 thoughts on “Heroes: A Frank Edition”

  2. Yo Frank…nice job pitching in for Marc. Well done. All terrific stories but the one about little Orion…what an impressive kid! That melted my heart in a week where it needed it. I can’t help but smile reading about him. Here’s to hoping the Halloween weekend goes easy on you and things settle down. In the good news department, there’s an ‘extra hour’ of snoozing as we go back to regular time. Stay well, sane and keep smiling.

    Like

    Reply

    • Jo,
      Sorry for the delayed response. Just caught your comment in the Spam folder. How dare the WP gnomes do that to us. All of us are encounter heroes all the time. Of course, recognizing and giving them credit is another thing. Thanks for asking about the family situation. My wife’s father (age 91) had an episode that landed him in the hospital (on a Thursday evening). THEN … 3 stints on Friday, a pacemaker on Monday, an Aortic value on Wednesday, then walking into our home late afternoon Thursday just in time for dinner. Wow.

      Like

      Reply

    • Eilene,
      Thanks for reading, and early returns having Orion being a big hit. How can someone not smile with the skeleton story. I learned about the Fogleberg song within 2020 … and I think it’s awesome. Glad you liked it! Enjoy your weekend.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. Frank,

    Ya done more than good! I hope the health issue has been resolved.

    Love that Marshall Helm just jumped in there and saved that family. That he was able to even enter the house in the first place!

    Orion Jean… Oh my goodness. If he’s like this at nine, can you imagine as a teenager? A young adult? No doubt in my mind this generous spirit is in his DNA. And that smile…

    I love that Emergency RV story.

    I’m glad I got a sneak peak of Theo’s special “boney” friend, Benny, video because I don’t have access to it since I’m home… Here’s another for anyone stuck https://youtu.be/XhbJMbCwiw0 I just love that Theo’s mother didn’t freak out or stop him from bringing Benny everywhere. Who’d a thunk? And perfect for this holiday, though far from spooky!

    Beautiful video to go with Dan Fogelberg, too. Yep. We fall back at 2 am, as well

    Dale

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. Cincy

    All keepers in my book. But if I HAD to choose, it’s gotta be Orion for me. That kid has the name and the game and the ability to affect positive change at his age . . I can ONLY imagine what his impact will be on the world he grows up inside of. But it’s going to be a really, really good one, and much needed.

    Thank you for your pinch hit home run for last week’s episode. I appreciate you.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Hi Frank – well done on the heroes post – still smiling after going through the snippets and stories – and the closing song is smooth and uplifting with the harmonies – affirming the thought that i agree is fortunate :0) – thankfully –
    “heroes are not by societal biases as age, gender, race, sexuality, religion, and nationality”
    🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.