Recently I promised to focus on “the bright side” of the news because of the constant onslaught of negative headlines. It’s not as easy as it sounds.
One of today’s headlines at the Drudge Report promises to tell the story of a woman stealing a dog from a man in medical distress as paramedics worked to save his life. Who would do such a thing? More headlines scream that the president is a racist because he’s said pretty much the exact same thing about Baltimore as the former major and current congressman (parts of the city are a rat-infested cesspool) because Trump has the wrong skin color: orange.
Everything seems to be a controversy, even the first American flag created by anti-slavery Quaker Betsy Ross (because Colin Kaepernick said the flag she sewed was racist.) But I don’t want to talk Colin Kaepernick because I don’t agree with his politics, and the point is to look for the bright side of a story. For the same reason, I don’t want to talk about Megan Rapinoe and her protests as a member of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer team when the national anthem was played, even though her attention-seeking gesture upset me more than Kaepernick because Rapinoe represented our nation as a competitor but was allowed to disrespect its most powerful symbol, the flag.
Since I can’t think of anything positive to say about Kaepernick or Rapinoe but it would be easy to say something bad about them, I shall change the subject and talk about the fastest man alive, world record-holding Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt.
Because I always pull for the American athletes when they compete in international sports, Mr. Bolt caused me disappointment quite a few times during the course of his spectacular career.
However, I shall forever refuse to hold a grudge after I saw the awesome display of respect Bolt displayed toward my country after another scintillating victory on the track. He interrupted the interviewer in mid-sentence and stood quietly at attention while the U.S. national anthem was playing in the background.
It wasn’t the Jamaican national anthem; it was “The Star-Spangled Banner.” His humble respect for the anthem of a foreign nation was the ultimate display of true champion’s dignity and character, as the reporter tries to get him to invent new words to describe his awesome victory.
Even so, I will never be able to describe Usain Bolt as one of my favorite American athletes because he represented Jamaica when he competed.
He’s earned an even higher pedestal, in my opinion. That day, Usain Bolt became one of my favorite human beings. His simple gesture was the epitome of class.
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