Today’s heroes in chronological order:

First, Rachel. One of my swimmers. You went out of your way to play with Jakey at the pool and are always so excited to see him. You make faces at him and receive high fives. You also used an old remote control that he found in a drawer to talk to him like a telephone. This brought him much joy.

When I found out Heather and I were having a baby more than two years ago, I was excited for him to meet my college swimmers. I knew that, whenever he was at the pool, he’d be surrounded by kind, exuberant, wicked-intelligent young adults. This is just what has come to pass and you are one of those people.

Thank you.

[Forgive me if this next tribute reads like those Budweiser “Real American Heroes” commercials. As an aside, I love those commercials!]

Second hero, the man driving a big beige truck in the loading bay beside Fred Meyer this afternoon. You wore a fluorescent green safety vest over coveralls and took up nigh on fifty percent of your truck cab’s volume.

You were winching some sort of metal dumpster onto the back of your truck and we watched it slowly ratcheting higher, higher, until you flipped a switch and it lowered into place with a gigantic clang.

Jakey said, “Loud.”

I agreed.

You were working on Sunday afternoon. You may or may not like your job. Maybe you have kids at home or maybe you don’t. All I can tell you is that today the work you did made my son very happy while we loaded the groceries into our car and then stood to watch you winch that container the rest of the way into place.

For a day, for a moment, anyone can be a hero to a little boy. Just by being themselves.