Can't I Just Be Mad?

An interesting, but not coincidental, thing happened Saturday night. I was mad over having a BMW that I could not drive and a bicycle that I could not pedal, and was only half-way watching the big TV coverage of Thunder Over Louisville. As I said, I was mad until I saw something on the Thunder coverage that made me snap out of it. I had driven to a friend's house to pick up some DVDs and she and her husband were watching the Thunder coverage while I was there. They made small talk, asking how I'd been doing, to which I quickly told them about the BMW's alternator issue and the bike that had been broken down three times in two weeks. I just wanted to be mad for awhile, but my friend pointed out something that changed my whole outlook that evening.

On the TV, we saw a young man named Bryan Anderson who was the official "Thundernator" for the fireworks; he would be the one to flip the switch at 9:30 to start the world's largest fireworks display. He served in Iraq until a day in October of 2005 when his Humvee hit an IED and he lost both legs and one hand in the explosion. We saw the gigantic smile on this kid's face as he was sitting in his wheel chair in the command center for Thunder; he even said it was the most awesome thing he's ever done. My friend looked at me and said "You know, at least you have two legs to pedal or drive." There's not much I could say after that.