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By Root 533 0

or her questionable behavior, make a forgivable loan. Better yet, go down to your local elementary or middle school and volunteer for two, three hours a week after school. Read to a child, help him or her with fractions. Teach him or her how to play tennis. Take him or her to the movies. Both my resident director from Merrimack and my pops participate in mentoring programs similar to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program, and they swear it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of their lives. To take a child to the zoo or to the aquarium or some other place he or she has never been; to make a difference in these young people’s lives; to give them the assistance that they are not getting at home…. You can’t buy happiness like that, and the government surely won’t fund it.

One of the most popular programs at my college was Alternative Spring Break (ASB). Rather than spending the second week of March sipping on margaritas and bronzing their skins on the beaches of Miami or Jamaica or Cancun, students headed to places like Philadelphia or Chicago or the Bronx where they picked up a hammer and built a house for a needy family. And on their own dime, too. So, don’t tell me that we don’t care. Please. Americans care. Programs like ASB flourish. Maybe we underestimate ourselves, but—one at a time—we do care.

Which reminds me…we need more heroes. Boy, do we need more heroes. Ken Griffey Jr. is a hero as are Larry Bird, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ellen DeGeneres, and Oprah Winfrey, but that’s not what I’m talking about. We need more neighborhood heroes, more small timers stepping up against the crowd to show what it takes to embrace change. I hate to keep bringing him up, but Derrick is the perfect example. He is my hero. There’s a reason why he rose from the pits of poverty and made it out while others haven’t—hard work, discipline, a good attitude, smart decisions. It doesn’t happen if you sit on your front stoop sipping on a can of beer, and it doesn’t happen if you are reckless with your hard-earned money.

And do you think BG looks up to Derrick? You’re damn right he does. Guys like BG who never had anyone to look up to have no other choice but to look to their peers for guidance. Can you imagine the effects if we had more guys like Derrick as role models? Guys with their mouths shut, walking the walk, showing what it takes to avoid being another statistic. Wow. It could become contagious. It would be like a real-life multi-level marketing scheme.

I was at the airport once, and a guy really put this attitude into perspective for me. We were at the baggage claim, standing back, watching everyone attack the front of the conveyor belt to retrieve their bags. “Look at this,” he said. “Look at these people. They’re all so hungry to fetch their own two big bags of luggage, but nobody cares about that little old lady over there who is struggling with just her one. Ha. That’s life for ya.”

There it is. Life is like a baggage claim: you can be aggressive and self-serving or you can be aware of those who need help and lend a hand.

You can say what you want about my project, how it was flawed because of this or that. What if I had picked Jacksonville or Mobile or Savannah out of the hat instead of Charleston? And what if I had kids to tow around or what if I wouldn’t have struck the luck that I did in working with the greatest mover on the planet? Fair enough, but I’ve heard it all from the people who have critiqued my book along the way. I hope, though, that the criticisms of this book don’t take away from the fact that my story is by no means unique. The point stands that we can do something about our plight, or not. It is what it is. Get out and do something. After all, what is the alternative? Scrape by forever, complaining the whole time about how we’ve been done wrong? I’m telling you, it doesn’t have to be that way.

So, here I go, to retreat into my white-collar world, armed with my college education and the personal belongings that I have acquired over the last year. But let’s be honest here. Excluding my college