42

The whole theater applauded loudly at the end of "42."  Can't remember the last time that happened.  Sure didn't happen after "Olympus Has Fallen" or "Moonrise Kingdom."  I know we are suckers for shoot-em-up films and award winning dramatic fiction, but what we really crave is real life valor, someone who embodies righteousness.

Now, I don't really know how accurate "42" is as it was prefaced with the statement "Based on true facts" but in this film many people emerge as heroes.  Jackie Robinson, Rachel Robinson, Branch Rickey, Pee Wee Reese and even some little kid who chases a train. 

Big heroes need small heroes.  Big heroes need some "I got your back."

There was only one time in my life I was directly affected with prejudice.  I was a golfer at the Chardon Lakes Golf Club.  The best on the team, at the time, and had -- the previous year -- lead the group to the #1 spot in league rankings.  Also, my second club championship.  A runaway victory. 

I always started the season 5-6 weeks late because of school, so, one Tuesday in June, I walked into the locker room and saw a photo of me on the eighteenth green holding the trophy from the previous August.  "Women's Club Champ, Jean Reinhold,"  It made me happy. Proud. 

Then, just as quickly as those feelings popped up, they were squashed when I saw written next to the caption this one word: dyke.  All caps, in pen, small but surely noticeable.  Crazy thing too: to that point I had never kissed a girl, had never been on a date.  I just looked the part, I guess.

I yanked the picture down, went to the desk and asked the worker how long the picture hanging.  She said, "A couple months."  Then I demanded my money back, walked out of the clubhouse, and never went back.

I was not and am not mad at the person who wrote that word beside my picture; that's just dumb ignorance.  What did me in was the fact that all of my teammates had seen that picture -- all of the people who had seemed to like me for years -- and no one took it down.  They let hang there for 60 days...40 days...maybe only 3 days.  Who knows.  Had it only been that day, that still was one day too many.

And no one called when I never came back.  No one asked me why I had left.   No one contacted me for league play.  I was just completely dismissed.

So, damn, I'm impressed with Jackie Robinson.  His resolve in the face of hatred and ignorance.  And I'm also so impressed with Rachel Robinson, Branch Rickey and Pee Wee Reece, Ralph Braca, and the writer, Wendell Smith.  They did what we are all called to do in the face of radical bravery.  If we cannot stand in front of the charge, we must stand right behind and, with our solid stance, show our heroes that they are not alone.  That they have our sympathy, that we are suffering beside them and streaming them with strength to help gird their own.