ON BEING BRAVE The TV shows dealing with displays of bravery are, to me, sickening in their timidity. Imagine a grown person eating worms! Kids have done it for years - worms, bugs, and have been a big item with the aborigine outbacker Down Under - people who have, for centuries, have considered such items as a favorite take-out or fast-food favorite. Many of us have consumed more maggots in meat and mealy bug in flour than we would care to be think about... fried, baked, boiled perhaps , or souped or sandwiched!
What's demanding of persons as to be asked to consume a hunk of proteins in whatever form they may be presented? It' s all been done before and once you get your head pressures adjusted just right you can do it as well as anyone, that is - anyone who cares to do it.
Hairy human castaways on a mysterious islands are about as scary as yelling "Boo" at Halloween time, especially, when a staff seventeen camera men, gaffers, holders, lighters, dunkers, color changers, gofers, bulb and battery technicians, tweaker s of all types of, transportation people, makeup crafter and a mountain of equipment needed to film whatever the castaway are scheduled to be supposed to be doing.
Where is the man among them who could, in real life, do what man y face as daily work. I once knew a man named Thaddeus Frappes. He was not a large man, nor were his three brothers.. They were of average build and he was our local a smithy, did what fancier-named "farriers" do today - fitted horses with iron footwear. They required shoes after macadamized roads came into use. He, mainly work horses but some family one an d a few racing specimen. He worked mainly with work horses, a few family coach, cart,and buggy pullers expected to do well on either our regular or improved roadways. The had to wear iron shoes and all one had to do to fit such feet was to walk up to that mountain of muscle,hide and horsehair standing there with alert eyes rolling uneasily among strangers. The subject horse was taut, apprehensive. The man's job was simple enough: to step forward, turn his back to the questing eyes; pick the horse's front foot; tuck it between your knees with pads up an wonder if and when the animal's kick would come alive. The appendage you held fast was a muscled mussel.
Thadaeous sensed the movement of the muscles and held fast. He subdue the will of a horse and contrary to his actions muttered soothing word and other sounds of assurance as he did his work. He filed and scraped the hoof with heavy rasps and sharp goads. We believed it when he said it actually did not hurt the animal; more of the motions and grasping and as soon as the hoof surface was smooth enough, and any rock fragment picked out, the Smithy used tongs and fitted a hot iron shoe to the foot and hammered the iron to fit. He drove heavy nails though the soft and cooling iron shoe which was toe a part of the horse for a long time if he did his job well. Horses, as you know, have four legs so Thaddeus Eppes had to do that little trick three more times. He picked them up without pausing, did the others with his back toward the horse as he scraped and hammered away. Had the horse realized it any one of them could have sent most such blacksmith to iron shop heaven or hell with a single kick. The hind legs were the heavy artillery horses held for their end game. Any one of them could have sent Eppes to hardware heaven or hell. He never faltered, never hesitated, never showed the least sign of fear. He was a brave man. He went about his work, humming a tune, at times and often talking to, and I'm convinced with, the horses.
A.L.M March 6, 2005 [c677wds]
