George H.W. Bush is a motherfucker. And I mean that as a compliment.
At 90 years of age, and his legs rendered useless by a form of Parkinson’s Disease, he just jumped out of a helicopter.
To celebrate becoming a nonagenarian, he had himself lofted into the sky more than a mile up, slipped the surly bonds of earth, and completed a tandem parachute jump.
Once.
Do it again? At the age of 90? With spaghetti legs? Not a chance.
There are still a few motherfuckers left in America. But the rest of us are soft. I like to fancy myself as a motherfucker now and again, imagining what I’d do if push came to shove. But then I remember: I’d probably just get shoved.
Yeah, I once jumped out of a plane. I was less than half of Bush’s age and had two good legs. But I hated it and puked all over the place. And yeah, I used to get my teeth drilled for cavities without any novacane. But I was young, dumb, and broke.
Now? Now I’m middle aged and soft, just like the United States itself.
Honestly. How else do you explain seedless watermelons? Nope, we can’t be bothered to spit black watermelon seeds anymore, much less just eat the white ones. Cause we’re soft.
I mean, good luck finding regular grapefruit juice. No siree Bob, it’s gotta be ruby red on every grocery store shelf, cause the plain old yellow grapefruits are a little bitter. Can’t be expected to put up with that.
Or reading a map. Or cooking dinner from scratch. Or getting up to change the channel. Or waving a hand fan. Or walking anywhere.
Nope. Middle class America is too soft for any of that. Just gimme a smart phone, a remote, some takeout, a shit ton of air conditioning, and a good parking spot.
But here’s a 90 year old jumping out of a god damned helicopter from 6,000 feet. Of course, it’s really no biggie for him. After all, the first time he jumped out of a plane was because it was on fire.
A scion of Connecticut privilege and wealth, the son of a U.S. senator, and already accepted to Yale, George H.W. Bush forwent college after graduating the most elite high school in America and signed up to fight in World War II. He joined the Navy, and quickly became its youngest pilot.
On September 2, 1944, he was assigned to bomb a Japanese radio tower on the island of Chichi Jima, 150 miles north of Iwo Jima. Nearing the target, his plane was hit at 8,000 feet and caught fire. He continued on, dropped his payload, hit his target, and headed out to sea.
He ordered his crew to parachute out of the burning plane. He himself bailed out at only 3,000 feet. Upon exiting, he hit is head on the tail, but managed to safely parachute into the Pacific Ocean.
Another U.S. bomber dove to indicate the position of his life raft. He swam to it and climbed in, bleeding from the head wound and vomiting from seawater consumption.
Without any oars, he hand paddled away from Chichi Jima as Japanese gunboats began pursuing him. U.S. planes strafed the Japanese ships before heading back, enabling him to get away.
Two hours later, a periscope from the American submarine USS Finback popped out of the water, and he was saved. The rest of his crew had died, their bodies were never found.
I didn’t agree with a lot of George H.W. Bush’s policies when he was president, though more than two decades later he sure as hell seems a lot more moderate than any of today’s Republicans.
And I’m certainly not trying to romanticize a man who likely handed out 
clandestine assassination orders when he was head of the Central Intelligence Agency.
But there’s no denying that Old Man Bush is a motherfucker. And motherfuckers are in short supply these days.
Now where’s the remote?