Your homework for today is think of a hero,
a person who left a deep impact on you.
The one requirement – it can’t be a well known name.
Find someone within your close-knit life.
Lesser known people often give out so much energy
and our society does not sing their praise.

It is hard for me to think of heroes without fame.
They seem positioned to be known,
but after I thought about it and remembered someone.
In an unrestrained boys’ locker room
a kid over on the other side of the locker’s divide
flung across a wad of gum.

In an unfortunate fate of being in its crosshairs
it landed on me affixed right into place.
Now that it was stuck around each hair it touched
how will I ever remove this clinging bind?
The adults I asked didn’t know what to do
“Gum is not going to just wash out,
what else can you do but shave off all your hair?”

At this stage in life my hair really mattered to me
so I pleaded with the hairdresser
“is there a less extreme half measure we can do?”
At first she was pensively apprehensive
but decided to go far past doing the minimum job.
She did an excellent cut to a difficult task
which gave me a much better following months!

So I’m now rewriting my sixth grade assignment
realizing my hero deserves much more.
What an important write-up to have us do!
Recognizing that everyday extra effort.