Sincere admiration

Happy Monday, everyone.  I'm glad to report that central Kentucky finally is receiving some meaningful rainfall yesterday and today.  My lawn is especially happy about this.

I've been collecting some thoughts over the past week or so about people whom I genuinely admire.  I may have positive thoughts about certain people (most of them famous in politics, business, entertainment, sports or other walks of life) but there are not as many for whom I have real admiration.  So allow me to share some of them, and why they have earned my admiration.

Let's start with superstar chef and founder of World Central Kitchen Jose Andres.  I've mentioned him before, but I continue to be absolutely floored with the magnitude of this undertaking and how they always seem to be at every location of overwhelming need.  That includes natural disasters, such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti (which was the first time I had heard of him or WCK), the humanitarian crisis caused by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico or much closer to home in Mayfield, Kentucky following a series of catastrophic tornadoes.

Chef Andres does not simply go in to these areas for a couple of days and some publicity.  He and his teams (and they are large teams, too) go where needed and stay there as long as there is a need.  And not just for food, but for the experience that sharing meals with others can offer.  World Central Kitchen has served over 100,000,000 meals in Ukraine since the Russian invasion of that country, providing necessary care to those who have been displaced, those who are trying to depart the country, and to those who have remained to fight.  God bless him and his associates.  Hard to dispute the good that his organization does!

Follow me through this 180-degree turn to Liz Cheney, the sole member of the House of Representatives from the state of Wyoming.  She followed in the footsteps of her father, a truly conservative Republican, in that job and did her political duty for quite some time, voting with the majority of her party on nearly everything and rising to the position of the third-ranked Republican in the House.

Everything changed on January 6, 2021, of course, and Cheney became a very outspoken critic of former President Trump and his apparent role in the events leading up to and occurring that day.  But unlike her fellow Republican members of Congress in both the House AND Senate who avoid criticizing Mr. Trump for fear of losing their current positions, Cheney has spoken frankly about what happened, about those in power who refuse to speak out and most importantly, those who refused to act.

She has now lost that position of prominence among House Republicans, has been pilloried by right-wing media and is now facing a steep uphill battle to survive a primary challenge to keep her seat in Congress.  But correspondingly, she is one of two Republicans currently serving on the House Select Committee on January 6 and continues to speak truth to power and to specify what the Committee has found in numerous instances.  It's anticipated that Trump will run again for the Presidency and that his opponent in the Republican Party will be Cheney, given some of what she has said and done since 1/6/21.

It takes a lot for a modern politician to sacrifice hard-won status within one's party for the sake of what's right, but Cheney has done it, and despite the fact that I agree with almost none of her non-January 6 positions on any issues, I still have a sense of admiration for her.

Last person I wish to mention in this vein is now deceased but it's not been long since he left us.  Henry Louis Aaron was a baseball player in the Negro Leagues and then joined the Milwaukee (later Atlanta) Braves in 1954 at the age of 20.  He went on to play a total of 23 seasons for the Braves and briefly for the Milwaukee Brewers at the end of his career, and hit 755 home runs and a career batting average of .305.  He was always businesslike on the field, never a self-promoter and seldom, if ever, called attention to himself, except through his performance.

When he was approaching the career home run record previously held by the iconic Babe Ruth, he received ongoing threats against his life and that of his family and was protected by bodyguards for some weeks leading up to the breaking of that record.  He was warned not to appear in games in certain cities including Cincinnati, where he tied Ruth's career record, let continued with his quest as he had his entire career, with focus and determination.  

No less a luminary than Muhammad Ali, someone else who has my admiration, said that Aaron was "the only man I idolize more than myself."

Incidentally, it's well documented that Barry Bonds broke Aaron's career home run record, but many fans, including myself, don't consider him to be the holder of that record, since there was considerable suspicion about that accomplishment being aided by performance-enhancing substances.  But do you know who didn't agree with that?  Aaron himself.  He never hesitated in congratulating Bonds on breaking his record of 755 career homers, saying that he's had that record for long enough.  

I could go on and on and on, but there are people in our midst doing incredible things for others who deserve so much more recognition than they deserve.  We should all try to express appreciation of them when we can,