{"id":60354,"date":"2026-10-16T16:07:47","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T16:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=60354"},"modified":"2026-10-16T16:07:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T16:07:47","slug":"this-fellow-is-a-serious-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=60354","title":{"rendered":"This fellow is a serious hero!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n\r\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap wp-block-paragraph\">We toss the word &#8220;hero&#8221; around a bit too cavalierly in this era &#8230; using the term to describe pro athletes whose only &#8220;heroism&#8221; is doing what they are paid handsomely to do, which is run fast, throw hard and otherwise perform up to what is expected of them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Let&#8217;s save the term for the real deal, shall we? Such as the fellow who followed the 16-year-old lunatic into the Bend, Ore., elementary school and then killed him in a firefight. The killer murdered three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher. Four lives lost at the hands of a moron who seemingly aimed his rifle at the kids and then killed them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I get that this idiot was a teenager. His brain wasn&#8217;t quite finished developing, or so psychologists will tell us. But what kind of animal would seek to harm children in this manner. The world is a bit safer now that he&#8217;s been removed from the population.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As for the hero, I will salute him with all the emphasis I can muster. He clearly knew how to handle the weapon he carried into the school. Bend police report that he &#8220;engaged&#8221; the shooter the moment he saw him inside. Well done, sir.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a personal note, I want to share with you this item. My wife and I began our married life together when he honeymooned in Bend back in September 1971. It was a four-hour drive over the Cascade Range from Portland to our resort hotel. It was brand new then, and Bend was a whole lot smaller than it is now. But I have grown to know the city well as I have watched it grow to around 100,000 residents. Their hearts are broken &#8230; and so is mine.<\/p>\r\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We toss the word &#8220;hero&#8221; around a bit too cavalierly in this era &#8230; using the term to describe pro athletes whose only &#8220;heroism&#8221; is doing what they are paid handsomely to do, which is run fast, throw hard and otherwise perform up to what is expected of them. Let&#8217;s save the term for the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=60354\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">This fellow is a serious hero!<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8688,6251],"tags":[2037,2110],"class_list":["post-60354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-news","category-education-news","tag-gun-violence","tag-hero"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60354"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60356,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60354\/revisions\/60356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}