AMWW#136: WHAT A CROCODILE HUNTER TAUGHT ME

AMWW#136: WHAT A CROCODILE HUNTER TAUGHT ME
by Abe Munder, the Wheeled Wonder
(AbeMunder@xxxxxxx)

Yep, my jaw dropped too when I heard about the Crocodile Hunter.

For all the obvious reasons, sure, but also because he taught me
something. In this age of celebritology (did you hear how CBS taped
Walter Cronkite's voice to introduce that Hostess Twinkie, er, twinkie
hostess Katie Couric as the latest freshly scrubbed news anchor-reader?
blech, blech, blech), it sounds schmaltzy to say a star influenced your
life. But Steve Irwin really did drive home to me at least one good
lesson.

Irwin demonstrated fearlessness, perhaps to a fatal extreme. But he
also showed an essential toughness that impressed me as much. Tough as
the outback brush he was always bounding and flailing through like a
runaway Tonka truck.

He was in a rough and tumble business. I'm in a rough and tumble
business.

Welcome to the dings and pricks of handicapped life. Fingers and
joints hyperextended. Bruises, cuts, tendonitis, pressure burns, even
occasional humiliations--how about sitting in your own urine for hours
on end?

It's a hard-knock life, all right. But there are things even the
weakest of us can control.

For example, when someone is pulling a comb through your knotted hair,
hell yes it hurts. But it's also nobody's fault. So do you spit and
swear about it? Or do you check your tongue, knowing it will be over
in 20 seconds or so, and realizing that, after all, you are lucky to
have someone doing it for you in the first place?

Same with hanging from a lift in a sling, getting banged around like a
second-hand pinata. It's not part of some Argentinian torture ritual,
no, but the state-of-the-art method for someone to move you into the
shower.

The person moving you is being as careful as possible, especially
because she is receiving as many bangs and bruises on her end. Do you
bite her head off, or shut up and receive the shower you crave?

These incidental pains are being shared in a very literal way by
caregivers, you understand. (Think of it as Newton's Third Law in
action: for every inflicted ache and pain, there is an equal and
opposite counter-ache and pain.) Nobody talks about caregivers. I
don't write about them enough. Like Ginger Rogers matching Fred
Astaire step-for-step and backwards, caregivers live the same
down-and-dirty existence as their charges, and then some: because
afterward, they have to clean up the mess, launder the clothes, take
care of themselves, and miss sleep while doing so.

Being handicapped isn't so fun, but it's also not the center of the
universe.

Back down under, through nicks, cuts, bites, bleeds and breaks, Steve
Irwin didn't complain, at least not that he let us see. To me, that
was an unspoken yet powerful message.

What attracted us to Irwin was his daredevilry, no doubt. But what
reeled us in, and kept us coming back for more, was his enthusiasm, his
joy, his passion. Call it what you will, but it came across as the
real deal.

The first time you heard him say to a crocodile, "You're a beauty--I
just want to kiss you on the lips," you giggled. But then as you
watched, you thought, He really does want to kiss that crocodile on the
lips!

That passion was a motor inside of him. It's why he always wanted
more, why he couldn't wait to get in there to mix it up, and why he
didn't complain about a fractured finger or an occasional alligator
fang sunk down to his bone.

Because to Steve Irwin, those were painful things, but they were all
transitory. You suffer a wound, it smarts, you treat it with care, and
you heal. But the work and the passion remain before you.

The danger in this celebrity age is that you relate so much to the
characters fed to you through the idiot box, that you begin believing
that you know them, and even that they are like you. In that respect,
I may be acting like a sucker here. But I don't care. Because whether
or not I knew the real Steve Irwin, or even if I am projecting my own
thoughts and themes onto his life's work, it's still a genuine lesson
I'm taking with me from this.

And while I won't be wrestling crocodiles or scuba-diving with
stingrays, I will be always remember Steve Irwin's lessons to me. To
go at things with passion, and bite my tongue over the small stuff.

Plus the line "you're a little beauty," blurted in my best Australian
accent, works a charm with my wife. Thanks, Croc Hunter, and good on
ya.



THIS WEEK AT THE WONDERBLOG . . .

-- The Fountain of Youth discovered . . . at your corner grocer,

-- Osama messes with my wheels, but I bodyslam him, and

-- The Wonderblog gets featured on the MSN homepage! (Yes, improbable
as it seems, my head has grown even bigger.)

Shouldn't you be reading the Wonderblog, too? Visit
TheWheeledWonder.spaces.live.com



To join my mailing list, visit TheWheeledWonder.com
For archived Abes, visit AngryGimp.com

Look, up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's the
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Relevant Pages

  • "Croc Hunter" Steve Irwin Facts
    ... Steve Irwin didn't die. ... Steve Irwin once made a crocodile sandwich with dried peppercorns, ... croc in order to protect the Chippewa maiden Sacajawaya, the croc died, ... Steve Irwin once mated with a crocodile and had a child. ...
    (rec.arts.tv)
  • Re: RIP Steve Irwin
    ... less boring may be aware of Steve Irwin. ... Some may have heard of him when he dangled is baby above a crocodile. ...
    (uk.media.radio.archers)
  • Re: Crikey! Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin killed not by Uncle Croc, but by Stingray!
    ... crocodile is the american tourist. ... They make do with other nationalities, ... A commercial here in Florida runs something like this: ... "just like the Crocodile Hunter did!" ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • OT: Man domesticates a crocodile
    ... Man domesticates a crocodile: ... This guy makes Steve Irwin look like a noob. ... LOL ...
    (sci.med.diseases.lyme)