Down to the River

I’ve a well-deserved reputation as misanthropic pragmatist-I find the terms complementary, others less so. As dazzling as I see us and our accomplishments as a species and nearly as often as a national collective (‘Murikans!) I tend to watch almost every transaction large or small and wait for the other shoe to drop. 

I admire people for their achievements and aspirations even when their efforts in pursuit of the latter aren’t crowned by what convention might term ‘success.’  As someone who grew up wanting to be a cowboy, a baseball player, an astronaut and the President all at the same time (and still my trademark application for multitasking was denied!) I’ve watched out for David Wilson, a professional football player for the New Jersey Giants (not a typo; they share a playing surface with the Jersey Jets) even though it’s not really a sport for which I have an aptitude or affection.

Wilson was in the news a LOT for an injury he suffered last season and from which he had hoped (believed) to have made a full recovery so as to resume the pursuit of his dream career. Earlier this week, that dream ended as he was advised the nature of his chosen sport is such that he risked permanent disability and/or worse if he continued, so he retired.

What moved me was the way he handled not only the news but himself in the public arena, with the members of the working sports press, in reacting to it all. I’m NOT a NY Post guy-Daily News was more my morning jacket, and way easier to read on the bus and subway than the NY Times. I mention this because go back to the Post link and look in your browser window. The Post website guys couldn’t be bothered to slug a new page, but rather, dropped the revised text onto the previous url.

Yeah, you’re amazed I’m being snarky after I've marveled at Wilson’s eloquent expansiveness and expansive eloquence. Sue me. 

Decades ago, I fixated on a song from Bruce Springsteen, who has never pretended to be “New York” anything, and his sprawling masterpiece, The River, where he wondered aloud on the title track ‘is a dream a lie if it don’t come true?’

I think, for this moment at least, while I may not have an answer I can live with for the rest of my days, I now know someone who can and, more importantly, will.

-bill kenny