The Enervated Life of Mr. Gammy Foot

“Life's journey is not about arriving at the grave safely and in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "Woo Hoo" - - - what a ride!”

            That is the way my brother Belto signs off his e-mails.  I don’t know where he got this (maybe he made it up), but I love its description of a life lived boldly—charged through—so completely sold out to mission that nothing is left untapped and regretted.  It makes me think of Christ telling the disciples to stop watching the Weather Channel and jump out of the darn boat already.  Life is supposed to be exciting, and can be if lived within Him and in a spirit of True Grit.

            On Drudge this morning, two unrelated stories appeared that together run contrary to the spirit encapsulated by Belto’s e-tag.  First, here the story of a man from Gastonia, NC who robbed a bank of a dollar solely to avail himself of the comprehensive health care coverage offered by the Gaston County Sherriff. Apparently, the man was particularly concerned about a “gammy foot” that he wanted looked after.  I’m not exactly sure what Gammy Foot is, but I am pretty sure I’d limp through it quite a while before I would trade my freedom for the privilege of having the prison nurse-practitioner tell me to stay off it awhile, which I suppose is not all that bad since staying off your feet in prison is probably pretty doable.  Second here, King County, Washington will now levy a fine of $86 on any person reckless enough to try to swim outside of a “designated public beach”  in more than 4 feet of water without a life vest.  That’s right, if you are crazy enough to try to go swimming without a life vest in King County, you are getting fined.  One potential problem I see is that the one thing you cannot do with a life vest on is to swim, because life vests make you float.  They may not have thought this completely through in King County yet.  More likely, they don’t care.  They would probably rather not have anybody swimming anyway.  Too dangerous.

            Both of these stories resonate with me personally.  My wife’s family happens to be from Gastonia, NC.  Having spent a lot of time with them, it is hard to for me to reconcile the lack of personal resilience of Mr. Gammy Foot with what I know (second-hand) about the hard working people of Gastonia.  They just do not seem like the kind of folks who would rather subject themselves to the mind-numbing drudgery of prison life than try to manage their own health care.  Maybe Gastonia is changing, and not for the better.  I am no less flummoxed by the Mae West-happy folks of King County.  I met a soldier many years ago who told me that as a boy he and his friends would jump in the river holding rocks big enough to sink them to the river-bed, where they would hold them until they felt like that were going to pass out.  The last boy who bobbed to the surface was the winner.  Nobody died.  I’m thinking this game would not work very well wearing a life jacket.  That guy was a heckuva soldier—smart, tough and a pretty good swimmer. 

           

            I know these are extreme examples, but that is how bad trends start.  What will happen to our nation when a majority of Americans would rather be prisoners than risk life without adequate health care coverage?  Or, when the only people who know how to swim are the kids who are lucky enough to have parents who take them to “designated public beaches” for lessons from certified swimming instructors?  Are we really intended to live the Enervated Life of Mr. Gammy Foot, strapped into life jackets and yet still too terrified to jump out of the boat unless it is parked harmlessly on dry land?  What kind of ride is that?