Marshall Ramsey

In the distant future.

The President was tired. He understood why his predecessors had gone gray while in office. Heck, he was surprised he had any hair at all. Being President of the United States wasn’t a 9 to 5 job.  He remembered when he was a kid when Hillary Clinton had mentioned the “3 a.m. phone call.”  How many of THOSE had he received?  Now a phone ringing made him jump.  “What now?” he thought.

He splashed water on his face and stepped out of the Oval Office bathroom and into the office itself.  There was something about this room that energized him. He could almost feel the spirits of his predecessors.  He looked at the bust of Lincoln. He talked to him regularly.  He smiled — he knew the day Lincoln talked back, he’d resign. But he secretly hoped Honest Abe would give him some honest advice.  Lincoln understood all about a divided country. The President sat down in the chair as the makeup person applied the pancake.  “Just think sir, this speech will be on every cellphone and video screen around the country.”

No pressure.

The President thought about his speech he was about to give.  His speechwriters had poured countless hours into it. Economic experts had added their input. Party leaders had added their two cents.  Soup by committee.  He sighed and closed his eyes as the makeup person finished her work.

“Like polishing a turd.” the President quipped.  People had thought he was ruggedly handsome. He just felt rugged.  Three years of the worst economy since the Great Recession had beaten him up personally and in the polls.  Getting the economy going was like starting a car after someone had put sugar in the gas tank. Or restarting a wet campfire.

The President wanted to rub his temples, but he knew it would mess up his makeup.  His Chief of Staff walked through the room and she looked at her watch.  “Five minutes to showtime.” The President inhaled to his toes and exhaled.  “Here goes nothing,” he sighed.

He walked over and sat down at his desk. The room was already warmer from the extra lighting.  “Great,” he thought,” I will sweat like Nixon.”  His grandfather had told him about Richard Nixon.  Tricky Dick had a way about him, that’s for sure.

It was showtime.  The President took another deep breath and held it until the red light came on.  Three…..Two……One…….

“Good evening my fellow Americans. Tonight I come to you in a moment of great economic crisis.”

The teleprompter continued to roll but he just stopped.  There was a thirty-second pause — enough to cause his Chief of Staff to start waving her arms and turn a light shade of red.  The President took another breath and continued.

“I was supposed to give you a speech tonight about how I was going to propose a new Federal Program to fix this or fix that.  Don’t get me wrong, I think there is a place for a safety net and I’m going to do all I can do to make sure that you don’t fall too far.  But I can’t save you. No President can. I know, I know — this probably kills my chance for reelection — I don’t care. It’s time you heard the truth. You can do this.  I believe in you. But it’s up to YOU.”

The President paused, took off his glasses and looked right into the camera.

“Yes, I said it. It’s up to you.  You are going to turn this economy around.  And I’m going to cheer you on.  We have been blessed to live in the greatest country in the World. Yes, I just said that, too.  And I will repeat it. We have been blessed to live in the greatest country in the World. And for all its flaws, it’s still a land where dreams can and do come true.

I know I am supposed to blame the other party.  Or my predecessor.  Or the Man in the Moon.  Now is not a time for blame. Now is not a time for anger.

It is a time for belief. And I believe in you.

I know you are tired. You have every right to be.  The last three years have been hard on everyone.  I understand.  I once had to worry about putting food on my family’s table. I once went bankrupt.  To quote a former president, ‘I feel your pain.’

It’s time for us to get to work. To get busy.  My advisors and cabinet members are going to sit down to find ways to help get out of your way. To encourage you.

I believe in you. I believe in America. I believe it is time to end this economic depression once and for all.  God bless you and God bless the United States of America. ”

The red light went off and there was nothing but silence in the room.  The Chief of Staff (in a moment of disrespect) said, “What the hell was that?!?”

The President looked at her wearily and said, “The truth. The American people needed to hear the truth. It’s in their hands. And they need someone to believe in them.”

He rubbed his eyes again and said, “And if that gets my ass beat next election, so be it. ” He got up from his chair and walked back toward the living quarters, unaware that he had just lit a fire in the souls of Americans.  The Greatest Depression’s end was traced to that night. The night when Americans began to believe in themselves again.

Two women sat together on the Number 10 bus. The sky had opened up and a hard, gray rain was pelting the earth. Both sat there, wet from standing at their respective uncovered bus stations.  One looked at the other and said, “Bad hair day, eh?”

The other women, a woman who looked to be in her 70’s, just smiled and said nothing.

The first lady, who was probably 30, said, “tough economy out there.”

Her older seat mate just smiled and said, “Yup.”

The first lady was now getting frustrated.  Trying to start a conversation with her seat mate was like trying to start a wet campfire.  She kept throwing scraps on conversation on the pile and lighting them, only to get one-word answers.

“My car is broken down. I had to ride the bus this morning. You ride the bus often?”  She knew the answer before her seat mate said it.

“Yup.”

“Did you watch the State of the Union speech last night?  Our country is going to Hell in a hand basket.”

Her seat mate looked at the much younger woman and said, “Things are tough all over.”

The young woman felt satisfied that the older woman was coming around and starting to complain with her.  Misery loves company.

Both sat in silence for a couple of blocks and watched as the world outside scurried around in the pouring rain.  The younger woman tried again.

“I hope this rain stops.  My hair gets so frizzy when it gets wet.  It totally annoys me.”   The bus began to brake at the next stop and the older woman stood up.

She looked down at her younger seat mate and took off her wig, revealing her bald head.  “This is my stop. It’s the hospital and I’m being treated for Stage IV Breast Cancer.  The treatment is hard and the doctors don’t think I have much of a chance of survival. But I believe I will beat it. I intend to die on my own terms.  You’re a beautiful young woman so let me give you some advice: In my world, there is no such thing as a bad hair day.  You will be much happier if you believed that, too.”

And with that, she nodded and walked off the bus.  The younger woman just sat there stunned as she watched the bald woman walk proudly into the hospital’s front door.

(Nowhere, Somalia) Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Causen Chaos denied reports this afternoon that the successful commando raid that freed two hostages was led by long-time veteran WLBT reporter Bert Case. But sources inside the Pentagon hint that Case may have been once again saving the world and in the thick of things.

WLBT’s Dennis Smith was quoted last night on the Rachel Maddow Show that Case was on “vacation” and would not be back until later in the week.  “After last week’s incident of a Madison County fugitive surrendering to Case, the reporter/anchor had taken some time off to clear his head,” said Smith.  Sources from the ANG 172 wing located in Jackson said that a lone C-17 transport took off two days ago with a single passenger.  The sources would not speculate who that passenger might have been, but a WLBT reporter car was seen in the parking lot.

“Bert has faced down hurricanes, pissed-off governors, pit-bulls and fugitives.  What can a Somalian pirate do to him?” Governor Phil Bryant in a statement. “I personally think Somoas are my favorite Girl Scout cookie, but if they were being pirates, they had what was coming to them.”

Howard Ballou, longtime co-worker and friend of Case said, “Bert has been recovering from a recent illness. I guess he just wanted to show the world he is back and in fighting form.” Former Governor Haley Barbour released a statement saying, “If my friend Bert did anything wrong, I’ll pardon him.”

Sources inside the Pentagon described the scene in Somalia. Apparently Case entered the compound with a camera man. The nine pirates circled him and surrendered to his awesomeness. Navy SEAL Team Six then came in and shot them all dead. No one was injured in the incident. Well, except the pirates. They’re dead.

President Obama and Speaker Boehner, in a joint press conference, held hands and sang a little song praising the WLBT reporter.  Chuck Norris joined the two leaders on Capitol Hill and said, “What a bad ass. Even Chuck Norris fears Bert Case.”

The crowd was long gone and the lights were now dim. He walked out onto the artificial grass, looking at the red, white and blue confetti on the field.  He took one step repeated by 100 more. As he reached midfield, he gazed at the goalpost at the other end.  He paused and sat down near the spot where it had all taken place.

A beeping sound from a truck backing up was the only sound he heard in the dome.  He closed his eyes and focused on the events of three hours earlier and in his head. The cheers were as loud as a jet engine. Then world went still except for his beating heart. The ball was snap and then the kick. He watched as the football soared 56 yards through the uprights.  Then he saw the explosion of joy on the sideline. And the world went still once again. The next thing he knew he was in the air, riding on the shoulders of men who weighed twice what he did.

He opened his eyes and thought about the first time he had kicked a ball.  It was a soccer ball that had soared nearly the length of his Pee Wee field. The Good Lord had given him a cannon for a leg and that was the moment the world discovered it.  He could still see the stunned looks on the other teams’ faces. Seven years later, barely 140 pounds dripping wet, he had tried out for his high school football team.  The rest is, as they say, history.

He kicked hundreds of kicks. And millions more in his mind.

Visualization was a trick he had learned early on. Theater of the mind was what he liked to call it. He saw every kick before he made it. He smelled the grass. He felt the wind. He heard the crowd cheering.  He played the movie of his success in his head. Over and over and over and over. And then he repeated it.

When the doctor had told him that he had cancer, he used the same movies to help him heal. He pictured the chemo attacking the cancer cells. He pictured the doctor showing him clean scans.  Like every other opponent he had faced, he had beat the beast.  He felt the scar on his side and looked back downfield at the goal post.

The goal post.  The perfect visualization for the goals he chose to reach.  His job was to put a brown football through yellow uprights.  He had set a seemly unreachable goal —  him raising the Championship trophy.  Six field goals tonight.  He was the difference in the margin of victory.  And the last one of the night was the game winner in overtime.  He smiled.  Tonight was the final reel in a movie he had been playing in his mind since he was 14.  He raised that trophy. Mission accomplished.

The difference between success and failure was what played between his ears.  It was the movie in his mind that had made the difference. He was the writer, producer and director of tonight’s outcome.  He just sat there for a moment smiling, enjoying the silence of the dome around him.  Then he got up, brushed the confetti off his butt, and headed back to the locker room. He had an ongoing celebration to rejoin.

He felt his scar and enjoyed the moment he had previously replayed in his head so many times.  The kicker walked off the field a champion.