In All Sizes

Just when I thought that I had run out of heroes- ker wham!- Greta Thunberg!

Now, if you come around here often, you've gotten used to me whining about the demise of my beloved rock'n'roll. Okay, let's be honest- you're bored sick of it. Geezus, it hung around for decades. It was meant to last for a year or two!

Not all of my heroes have come from rock'n'roll, of course. In fact, Roy Rogers was the first. It doesn't escape me that he wore glitter suits and played guitar while he sang. In what for me was a logical progression, Elvis, and then the Beatles, provided most of my inspiration for most of the rest of my life. 

While the trvialist ninnies argue over exactly what event signaled the official end of the fab four, we can all agree that they have been gone for nearly half a century, with only half of them walking on the planet. I have been rudderless for more than half my life. My long life.

Of course I have writers and race car drivers, poets, hookers and sons of god; doctors and scientists, movie stars, cult leaders and ventriloquists whom I tend to put up on wobbly pedestals. I try to talk like them and dress like them and comb my hair like they do. Well, I don't comb my hair all that often, but, if I did, I would try to comb it like James Dean combed his.

Finally, it seems only fitting that I am thunderstruck. 

This is the real thing. This is a hero.

Greta Thunberg is the sixteen year old Swedish student who began school strikes in 2018 to bring attention to the climate catastrophe that the planet faces. She is currently in the U.S. speaking to various groups and organizations to bring awareness to a wider audience. I feel the same excitement that coursed through my sixteen year old body when the Beatles first came to the states.

As you might guess, a great number of American adults are finding time to ridicule, harass and even threaten this brave, young prophet. Oh, it's not strictly an American thing. Jerks and jackasses from around the world, who happen to submit to profit over science, are in on the opposition.

The wise sixteen year old takes it as a sign that she's dealing with truth. I do, too.

Welcome, Greta. You're just in time.