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HELP is a Four Letter Word

HELP is a Four Letter Word

by | Jun 11, 2012 | Family

Less than 24 hours until the resident man of steel goes under the knife for back surgery, and I’m not sure which one of us is looking forward to it the most.

Okay, the above statement is false.

Hiram is looking forward to it most, especially in the night when he’s trying to find a comfortable sleeping position, and I’m sawing logs, oblivious to his discomfort. But my anticipation of the surgery which will relieve his pain and speed his recovery is a close second to his.

Why am I so eager for this to be over?

Because men, even those in excruciating back pain and unable to putter around the house or lawn, consider H-E-L-P to be a four letter word. Of course, in a surface level, numeric sense, they’re right. But a man’s deep aversion to asking for H-E-L-P goes far below the surface. In the past few weeks, when we’ve been obliged to ask others for H-E-L-P, I’ve come to believe this male trait is hard-wired. And God agrees with me.

How do I know this?

Because, and I quote Genesis 2:18, Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” Notice, God doesn’t say, “Hey, Adam, looks like that’s more than one guy can handle. Want a little H-E-L-P?”

And why doesn’t he ask that?

Because them’s fightin’ words for Adam, and God knows it. He knows Adam will refuse H-E-L-P when offered. He also knows Adam won’t ask for H-E-L-P when he needs it. So God, knowing Adam did need H-E-L-P, put him to sleep and made Eve indispensable before Adam woke up and had time to object.

And what kind of helper did God make?

Not someone strong enough to do all the heavy lifting, but someone who recognized when a task was more than she and Adam could handle and would ask for H-E-L-P. Yes, it’s true that she looked for H-E-L-P in the wrong place once and caused all sorts of problems. But this post is about men’s defective hard-wiring, not women’s. Though if some guy wants to tackle that subject in a future blog post, I’m more than willing to accept the H-E-L-P.

Any takers?

A Fate Worse than Death

A Fate Worse than Death

by | Oct 31, 2011 | Reflections on the Past

If you watched Bonanza on Sunday evenings in the 1960s, you know this grizzly truth: women who caught the eye of one Pa, Adam, Hoss, or Little Joe suffered a fate worse than death. Not because those hardy Cartwright men were serial killers or members of a weird cult.

Television of that sort wasn’t allowed in the 1960s.

Every one of the little fillies (that’s what Hoss called the girls at Ponderosa hoe downs and barn dances) never lasted long. They either suffered a variety of maladies, like blindness or rabies, that felled them in a show or two. Or they stuck around for three shows, just long enough to reveal a major character flaw.

And break the heart of one of them strappin’ Cartwright fellas.

Well, last night PBS spilled the beans during the TV Westerns installment of their Pioneers in Television series. Apparently, one of the creators of the show, David Dortort, nixed the idea of marrying off the Cartwright men. He didn’t want to make them appear weak or beholden to women.

I guess we know who had issues with his mother, don’t we?

But – and this is purely conjecture on my part, not something stated during the documentary – Mr. Dortort thought it was perfectly okay for the Cartwright men to be beholden to Hop Sing. You remember him? The tiny Chinese cook who ran into the dining room brandishing an enormous butcher knife with frightening regularity.

Hop Sing aside, last night’s documentary finally laid to rest one of the last, unanswered questions from my childhood. Now I understand why Hollywood starlets didn’t hang their hopes on being cast as a Cartwright love interest.  And I understand why my cousins and I argued continually about who got to be Little Joe when we played Bonanza together. In the absence of female roles to claim, Michael Landon was the prettiest person on the Ponderosa. So how did they always talk me into being Hoss?

I think I figured it was better than being Hop Sing.