YOU CAN CALL ME...

My father used to quote and old cliché, "You can call me anything, but don't call me late for dinner."

Well, today our society has become so label conscious it is almost an impossibility avoiding or attracting one.

We are now a country of winners, losers, optimists, pessimists, leftists, rightists, blues, reds, civil libertarians, conservatives, radicals, elitists, warmongers, and pseudo-intellectuals.

We owe our allegiances to, African American, Anglo Saxon, Latin American, Wasp, Jewish, Catholic, Native American, Mid-Eastern or Far Eastern cultures. I am adding several etceteras to cover any group I might have offended by leaving out.

In addition, we can be Noisy New Yorkers, Frigid Philadelphians, Cheap Canadians, Outlandish Californians, Unsophisticated Midwesterners, Redneck Southerners or Old Farts from South Florida, where additionally they divide us into, natives, residents, Snow Birds, Snow Flakes or Tourists.

For example during the many portions of my life, they have tagged me as:

1. A bed wetter
2. Troubled child
3. Difficult
4. Rebellious
5. Talented
6. Under-achiever
7. Probably Dyslexic as a child
8. Hoodlum
9. A goof off (In the service)
10. Probably A.D.D. as a child
11. A wastrel
12. A tightwad
13. A good lover
14. A bad lover
15. A good husband
16. A bad husband
17. A mature husband
18. A bad father
19. A great father
20. Probably Bi-Polar as a child

And finally, "A good guy."

What I had hoped to achieve was; creative, artistic, deep thinker, philosopher, Renaissance Man or at least eccentric, which by the way, is a title I would gladly have accepted.

Yet, what I really am is simply a person plodding though life, shorn of labels, trying to do the right thing and reaching for a little bit of immortality in that thing that I do.

In the end, I try to live by a quote from David Copperfield, "Shall I be the hero of my own life, or forever the victim?"

If you must label me, then call me Hero.