I’d like to forget about semi-automatic weapons and presidential jargon for a while. And I mean it. If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again: the only headlines we see on television involve naked celebrities, racism, shootings, or professional wrestling matches involving candidates.
Well how about I tell you about seventy-five-year-old Jerry Gregg? The Alabama man who signed up for the most intensive Alaskan sled race on earth. He’s looking for his final heart-stopping adventure. Gregg’s wife told reporters she was thankful for her husband’s fat life-insurance policy.
Spartenberg, South Carolina: Tuesday, a mobile home caught fire. Everyone in the home would’ve died had it not been for a smart two-year-old girl who woke her mother.
The family of three lost everything, with a capital E, except the clothes on their backs. But, by God, thanks to one famously clever toddler, they have each other. They also have a GoFundMe page. As of now they’ve only received five hundred bucks.
Mississippi: fifteen-year-old Hanna has cystic hygroma, which means she has tumors. Big ones. She’s spent the majority of her life in Baston Children’s Hospital, living on a trachea and feeding tubes.
This week, Hanna’s famous. She’s helping host the local radiothon to raise money for the same hospital that saved her life. “When everyone comes together,” Hanna said. “It’s electric, there’s no way anyone can be down or sad.”
Easy for you to say, Hanna.
And now, meet three-year-old Eli, who went missing in rural Louisiana. One moment, Eli played in the backyard. The next moment; gone. Everyone imagined the worst. One of the first things Eli’s mother did was call the pastor of local Gum Springs Baptist Church.
The preacher, Douglas Downs, did what any self-respecting man of God would do; he fetched his hunting dog.
Honey, the no-nonsense bloodhound, zig-zagged through the muddy woods the same as she would sniff for deer. She tracked Eli’s scent around a pond, then down a steep hill to find him stuck in a mud hole, crying.
“I scooped up the little boy,” said the pastor. “And Honey was just running circles around us. Then we all just started screaming and hollering, ‘We got him!’”
Nice try, Pastor. But without blood or nudity, I’m afraid it’s just not suitable evening news material.
Thanks anyway.