The Rural Voice, 1981-08, Page 21KEITH ROULSTON
You just have to have the "the right stuff"
A friend happened to lend me a copy of
Tom Wolfe's study of the astronauts
called The Right Stuff recently and I'm in
the midst of discovering just what this
"right stuff" that I don't possess is.
The astronauts, of course, had the
"right stuff". There were a whole bunch
of qualities that made pilots the successes
which led them to be chosen as
astronauts. They had to be brave, of
course, and they had to have stamina and
what we call today macho. They were
always testing the limits. When they flew
their planes in test flights, they always
tried to do just a little more than they
were supposed to. They went out and
celebrated and drank until the early
morning, then caught a couple of hours
sleep and went up and did death -defying
things in their aircraft. If they managed
to defy death (and many colleagues over
the years didn't) they came back down
and drank some more and proved their
manliness and "right stuff" by racing
their cars in the middle of the night. If
they survived that (again many didn't)
they got up on a few hours sleep and did
it all over again the next day.
It all seemed a little reckless and stupid
to me. Then I was driving down the road
the other day and I saw something that
made me think this "right stuff— bit
wasn't only evident in pilots. There was a
farmer out in his field ba ling hay.
Between the tractor and the ba ler the
entire power take off shaft was visibly
turning, with no safety cover in sight.
Perhaps it was just a moment of
carelessness. Perhaps something had to
be fixed that required removal of the
shield and in the haste to get back to work
the farmer hadn't taken the time to put it
on again. Perhaps. But I think in many a
farmer I've known there's a streak of
macho or "right stuff' or whatever,
which says guards and shields are meant
for some other dumb cluck and I'm too
smart or too brave or too lucky to have to
live by the rules other people live by.
You can see the same psychology at
work on our country roads on a Friday or
Saturday night when the sport of many of
our young people becomes "gravel
running," putting a couple of cases of
beer in a car and tearing up and down
gravel roads at dangerous speeds. They
are so confident, these young men, that
no matter how much the alcohol deadens
their reactions, no matter what surprises
may loom in the dark, no matter how the
gravel may suddenly tug at their controls,
they have the "right stuff" to see them
through.
The pilots never believed anything
could happen to them. When a fellow
pilot was killed it was because he lacked
the "right stuff". When a farmer gets
killed in an accident because he didn't
use proper safety equipment, when a kid
gets killed on a sideroad because he
wasn't as good as he thought at driving
too fast on gravel roads with a few pints
in him, the survivors never seem to learn;
they simply feel the loser didn't have
"the right stuff" which they have in
quantity.
Well if that's the "right stuff" please
keep me from being in the way of
anybody who's got it. And please keep
anyone 1 love from being infected by what
they might think is the "right stuff'. 1'd
rather call it stupidity.
1
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THE RURAL VOICE/AUGUST 1981 PG. 19