There was a time, back before professional wrestling became the ‘roided up, sleazed out spectacle it is today – it was more or less family entertainment. As late as the early 1980s, before the WWE became the 800-lb. gorilla it is today, fathers and sons could still take in a big time wrestling promotion at the local middle school.
It is a cliché to say things were simpler in the old days, but in the often deliberately murky world of professional wrestling, things really were simpler. There were good guys and bad guys. The bad guys always cheated. The good guys played by the rules and, more often than not, won out. It was the way we want things to be. That’s partially why the formula worked so well for so long.
Of course it was all for show. For the longest time, though the industry would never admit that, it was an open secret to any observer with two eyes and a lick of sense.
We must admit to feeling a little nostalgic when the minor league wrestling show came to Medomak Valley High School last Friday. From all accounts it was a family event and a good time was had by all, as it should have been for a school fundraiser.
One thing we are learning this year is that life doesn’t play by the rules. Like pro rasslin’, we sort of always knew that but it is still something hard to admit.
This morning a family from Jefferson is clustered in Boston while a 10-year-old boy receives treatment for significant burn injuries. Their regular life is suspended until their young one is out of danger. That is as it should be, but it is still not fair.
Starting with a Bremen family’s tragedy in early January, and moving right along to the accident yesterday in Jefferson, so far this seems to be a particularly dark year for Lincoln County families.
In keeping with our 2010 theme of setting the example locally for the rest of the country to follow, for the rest of this year, let’s celebrate families and put the welfare of children first. Let’s make this Lincoln County’s year of the child. That’s the way it should be.
