Not Quite Heroes

This morning some of my youth helped me pack up a twin bed and drive to Lawrenceville. Now, ordinarily, this would not be blog-post worthy; my youth are always helping me with some sort of community service project or another, so the idea of them assembling to help some folks out isn't exactly novel.

Dressing up in matching t-shirts, superhero masks, and pushing a twin bed around Lawrenceville's Court House Square, however?

Extremely novel.

Today was the annual Family Promise Bed Race, a golden-hearted event that benefits Family Promise of Gwinnett, an organization dedicated to combating homelessness in Gwinnett County. The Bed Race is a fund raiser for FP, and it usually draws a wacky assortment of costumes, bed designs and fitness levels from churches and civic-minded community groups all around our fine county. This was my group's second year in the event, and because I am a total geek, we dressed up as The Avengers (you better believe I am counting down the days to that movie).

The race seems fairly simple: you begin on North Clayton Street, in the shade of the various trees that line that side of the courthouse. The starting blocks are staggered, but it doesn't matter: the race is against the clock, not your opponent. Each team will run down N. Clayton Street, take a semi-swift right onto West Crogan Street, and then take another, slower right onto South Perry Street.

Did I mention that once you turn on Crogan, the race is entirely uphill? And into the sun?

Did I also mention that you're pushing a bed the entire time? Uphill. Into the sun.

They try to make it easy on you. They have cones that mark your lane. Hit one and you're disqualified. They also have a Grand Marshall who calls the entire race from the shady coolness of the courthouse gazebo. This year it was David Chandley, the ebullient meteorologist from WSB-TV. It's his job to build the tension and paint the scene for the hundreds of people who line the streets to watch. David is charming, funny, and one heck of a nice man.

David is also a bit sarcastic. Apparently he told the crowd that he was picking our team to win its first heat. (It must have been our cool headgear.)

But when we were overtaken in turn two, and the Cat-in-the-Hat Thingamajigger blew by us for the win, he turned heel on us.

Who knew that could even happen?

At the end of the first heat, my students were tired. Not just tired, but tongue-on-the-ground, splash-Gatorade-in-your-face, run-to-the-bathroom-to-puke tired. We felt like we'd just climbed Everest; we looked like we'd just contracted malaria.

The race is designed so that once you're done racing, you continue through the the finish line, go back behind the courthouse, and get in line to race again. Mercifully, there were at least 14 other beds in the race; if we'd had to race immediately after our first heat, I'm pretty sure someone would have died.

Most likely me.

I thought about faking a groin injury. An Achilles pop. An ACL tear. Irritable bowel syndrome. Anything to keep me from having to run the next race. But one of my students legitmately got sick, so I had to suck it up. Due to race rules, we couldn't swap in a new person, so we had to let the young lady steering our bed push it instead, and the walking wounded got to steer.

In theory, it seemed the perfect idea: Fresh legs. New energy. Enthusiasm. But as soon as the word, "GO!" came out of the line judge's mouth, the idea was not so perfect. The young lady was ready to run; the other three of us pushing were ready to die. But we gamely kept at it, losing only because we stopped running really hard about halfway through.

After the second race, I found a nice cool bench where I could lie down. I pulled out my cell phone and typed a quick text message to my wife that was essentially my last will and testament. But there was a tree above my bench, and a sudden cool breeze, and after a few minutes of absolute motionlessness, I felt better.

Then I heard that we hadn't made the finals and therefore didn't have to race again.

Suddenly, I felt much, much better.

In the end, though, it was the thought that, by pushing a silly bed for a grand total of one minute, thirty-one seconds, we were helping truly needy families that made the day worth doing. We'll be back next year with another team, another bed and even stranger costumes. We'll laugh ourselves silly, nearly die of exhaustion, and create some memories that will serve us well over the following months.

But most of all we'll be taking a stand for those people in our community who actually need heroes - people who, often through no fault of their own, find themselves at the mercy of the kindness around them. We may have raced like hopeless fools, but we're not; we know that by coming together, raising money and awareness, by continuing to strengthen a network of churches who will not stand idly by while their neighbor loses their home, we're actually something more.

Maybe not quite heroes, but certainly, in a small way, heroic. And what better lesson can you teach our youth?