Heroes, Sheroes, and Other Myths:

Why Superman Ain’t So Super when Disaster Strikes

I always liked the term “sheroes” because, although my daddy was a good, honest, hard-working man, he was never my hero. Since he died when I was only thirteen, before I could ever refer to him as a friend, he was the closest thing he could ever be to me, without being a hero. He was my daddy, and as Pearl Cleage said, he looked at me “as if I had hung the moon”. I would love to say he was my hero, and to many people, he was a hero. He rescued people who were stranded, fixed their cars, towed them out of snow, sleet, and whatever else they shouldn’t have been out at all times of night in, and he was a hero to them. To me, he was just daddy, and that was enough.
My real “shero” was my Granny. As I sit in my dark house on my birthday, September 22nd , without lights for the fourth day in the wake of hurricane Isabel, I realize just why Granny was my shero. Heroes are men who rescue women from imminent danger when they are the “damsel in distress”. Although I have spent much of my life in distress, there has been no hero to rescue me. I have, by the grace of God, managed to get by with a lot of prayer and some basic “mother-wit”, and that is where my shero enters the picture.
My Granny died when I was only 11 years old, but she taught me so much in the first 11 years of my life that I have used all these other years, that she could be no less than a shero. People ask me all the time how my sister and I know so much and know how to do so much—how we had the courage to have gastric bypass surgery and succeed at it when most people fail—how we know so much about computers and technology when most people in our generation are still wary of it—even how we, last Sunday, managed to make it to church looking stunning in our church hats, yet saying that neither of us had electricity in our homes. Our reply—we still had hot and cold running water and a Coleman stove to make coffee—“Aren’t we blessed! ?”
The truth is that, from my birth to my grandmother’s death, she taught me things that I could use for a lifetime. She used to say “how to make do”. We didn’t have any power to use the blow dryers or electric curlers, so we washed our hair and slicked it down, dug out some hats, and then found clothes to match the hats we found. Granny would have loved that. I could almost hear her cheering and saying, “You go girls, show them how to work it!”
Granny had a second grade education, having been born in 1884, in rural South Carolina and not allowed to go to school, but she read well and taught her nine surviving children (including my mother who was the youngest) and later my sister and me, how to read. She knew that knowledge was power, and she stressed that every day that she lived. Even now, if I want to know how to do something, I read about it, or get someone knowledgeable to teach me. When it’s beyond me, as my financial problems frequently seem to be, I find an expert. One thing about being knowledgeable that most people overlook is knowing when some problem is too great for you to solve all by yourself. Granny taught me that, too.
Using my sports walkman and some mini-speakers I took off an old, cheap, broken radio, I have listened to accounts of the devastation of Isabel. A lack of electrical power is no real reason to “trip”. Houses, cars, and other possessions were demolished, but very few lives were lost. Then, in news reports, I hear people whining about things that I consider trivial—like places running out of ice. I know that people can’t afford to lose their food, but I also know that there are ways to deal with all of that. The food from my refrigerator and freezer are in separate coolers, and I’m not sure I can find ice for either of them. If I don’t, there will be another freezer cleaner barbecue big dinner. Friday night it was fried chicken, fixed in a cast iron skillet on the barbecue grill. Saturday night it was all manner of meat that could be grilled—chicken, fish, and even turkey wings and drumsticks, and, of course, corn on the cob, grill style. Sunday, we got rid of the ground meat—ground beef, ground pork, ground turkey—in spaghetti sauce, and thawed bread, brushed with melting butter and sprinkled with garlic powder. The next sacrifice will be a pork shoulder roast, once frozen solid, that wouldn’t fit into either cooler. Then, I turn on the battery-powered radio, and I hear people complaining about the lack of power, with the power company apologizing profusely about the inconvenience.
Now, there is no love lost between myself and the power company, who, I imagine, would not have to apologize so much if they didn’t overcharge tremendously for electricity during good times (then give imaginary rebates that consumers never see because they just apply them to the next tremendously outrageous bill). However, on Wednesday, when Isabel was imminent (there’s that descriptive “hero” word again), bucket trucks and power lineman convoys were already being strategically placed so they could rush in and become heroes. It didn’t work because God had other plans about the devastation and damage, and so they have had to apologize for not being able to be heroes.
Sorry guys, but it’s sheroes week, and we are working it. All the beautiful, decorative candles that we used to try to create a romantic mood, are now being used as night lights to make our babies feel safe and secure in electrical darkness. All that food we stockpiled is making family get-togethers a daily occurrence, possibly to the dismay of the men-folks. Who wants all those people around all the time…She does. Our kids are continuing their studies, since there has been no school, by lamplight. It was good enough for our mothers and grandmothers, wasn’t it? A gallon of spring water means cleanliness and good hygiene for a whole family. “Birdbaths” my Granny used to call them. Family interaction, with or without pulling the dusty board games out of the closet or off the shelves, has replaced PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox, and the constantly droning, as-close-as-you-can-get-without-being-X-rated videos that has become a way of life for most of us.
Thanks, anyway heroes. We’re sorry that Superman has a bit more than even he can handle right now. We applaud your efforts. However, while you are working, we “sheroes” will continue to keep things together for ourselves and for our families.