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July 2, 2025

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1 Homepage Slider 3 Top Story Point of View Laura

Braveheart by Laura J. Oliver

October 23, 2022 by Laura J. Oliver

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If the house catches fire, I’ll knot my twisted bedsheets together and scramble to safety from an upstairs window. Plan B? Jump to the mulberry tree after rallying the family for evacuation. If the pilot has a heart attack… if the brakes on the car fail…you get the idea. From the time I was in elementary school I have strategized the means by which I will save my family if disaster strikes. Tidal waves, earthquakes, collapsing bridges—there’s a plan.

In novels and short stories, it’s called “saving the cat”—the moment when the protagonist–who may have some pretty overt failings, redeems himself by running back into the burning building to rescue the cat. But when I was 8, I learned you can’t plan for these events. You have to already be a hero, and if that’s what you’re made of the moment finds you.

Summer was stir-fry hot. My older sister, her pretty friend Patty, some neighborhood boys, and I were crabbing off the end of our pier while our collie, Beau, kept an eye on us. Normally, we combed the seaweed for doublers within wading distance of shore or searched for unwary crustaceans clinging delicately to the pier pilings. But this time we’d procured chicken necks and that’s where the trouble began.

The smell of creosote baking in the midsummer sun, the saltwater breeze off the river, dragonflies flitting about in the beachgrass, all conspired to create what could have been a typical July afternoon. There were more kids than crab nets so there was the usual jostling at the end of the pier as we tied thick twine around each boney crook of chicken, securing the other end to a piling with an untoward number of knots before tossing the bait in the water. I’m not sure, but I may have been vain about my knot tying. I may have thought they were exceptionally tricky or tight. Someone, my father or perhaps a Girl Scout leader, had taught me to tie a slipknot, a bowline, a half hitch and a square knot.

Ernie, or more likely, Reese, peered over the end of the dock where we had several lines dangling and yelled, “Doubler! Give me the net!” We clustered shoulder to shoulder as he began gently tugging the string, inch by slow inch, towards the surface. The crabs, which had begun the ascent as mere murky outlines, were now crystal clear just inches below our own rippling reflections. A 10-inch hard shell with a softy attached. With one quick scoop of the net and a flip of the wrist, Reese had the pair scrabbling in our rusty bucket. The chicken neck lay on the splintery dock, a boney hook on a homemade line.

In that split second, before anyone could stop him, the enterprising Beau lunged between our legs and swallowed the chicken neck whole, the string still secured to the piling. Six kids shrieked with excitement at the new development as the dog began to take huge, panicked gulps of the string, in an attempt to finish it off now that the chicken was stuck in his gullet. We desperately tried to unknot the twine as the distressed dog retched but the string had gotten wet, then dried in the sun. That chicken neck might as well have been soldered to the piling.

As we realized we couldn’t pull the chicken out, and no one had a knife, what had been exciting, was fast becoming an emergency.

Suddenly, the resourceful Patty fell to her knees, grabbed the string as close to the dog’s mouth as she could get, and started to chew. Time slowed as the dog gagged, Patty chomped away, and the rest of us stared, silenced by the gross ingenuity of this development. The sun beat down, the dragonflies danced for their lives with only a few months to live, and after an intense minute the string gave way. The dog polished off the last couple of inches with a happy bark, and we erupted in a rousing cheer.

It has taken me years not to live as a strategist. To cross the Bay Bridge admiring the sparkling shimmer beneath the span-shadows, instead of wondering how long I can float on my back when the guardrail gives way.

I don’t know if this daydreaming was a hope for attention or a childish savior complex. Or perhaps it was where the mind of a child goes who, for good reason, has learned she has absolutely no control over what happens to her. Who has learned that fear is a required course in childhood, but fun is an elective. Who has learned to prepare for the worst because no one’s coming. But for all my preparation, research shows heroes don’t stop to plan or to reason. They act instantaneously and intuitively on an innate urge to serve. The good they do is instinctive.

I hope if the moment ever presents itself, I save the cat. Or the dog. Or someone’s baby, or an old man with a cane. I want to cure Juvenile Diabetes, to end addictions of every kind. To feed the starving on a global scale, foster abandoned children, bring laughter to the sad of heart.

But I think most of us don’t get the opportunity to save the cat. Instead, we have to live with the cat. Long days and unremarkable years of loving in the most ordinary of ways, steadfast and unacknowledged. Commuting insane hours on the beltway to provide for a family, rising repeatedly on sleepless nights to soothe fevers, and one day, reminding the parent who named us, of our name.

If you were loved this way, by anyone, may you be inspired to love this way in kind. That will make heroes of all of us.
*****

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Filed Under: 1 Homepage Slider, 3 Top Story, Laura

Letter to Editor: I’m Casting my Ballot for Brooke Lierman Spy Tip: Read Washington Post Columnist Damon Young on Conquering the Bay Bridge

Letters to Editor

  1. Michael Pullen says

    October 23, 2022 at 3:39 PM

    I love your stories, they evoke the best in us all.

    Once I saved a drowning man swept out in front of a crowded beach that included some of his pals, none of whom went in after him. You’re right, it’s purely instinctual, no thinking involved, just doing it because it has to be done that instant.

    He was in shock but alive. We both came close to drowning. I left with my kids and went home, startled and somehow surprised by what had just happened.

    • Laura Oliver says

      October 23, 2022 at 6:22 PM

      Awesome. You did it! You “saved the cat” and now you know what you’re made of. Thanks for writing.:)

  2. Gretchen Celestino says

    October 23, 2022 at 3:52 PM

    So lovely.

    • Laura Oliver says

      October 23, 2022 at 6:24 PM

      Thank you very much.

  3. Michael Davis says

    October 23, 2022 at 4:11 PM

    Patty’s thinking was pretty creative. That was a lucky dog.

    I feel lucky that I’ve not had to be a hero in that sense. It is satisfying, however, to be helpful in less dramatic ways. A few others and I care for cats for the Talbot Humane Society. They could always use more volunteers. And to help these cats (and dogs, and other critters) you don’t even have to run into burning buildings!

    • Laura Oliver says

      October 23, 2022 at 6:27 PM

      You are so right. I have been a volunteer dog walker at the SPCA for 5 years. Very gratifying—there are so many ways to serve. Thank you for the work you do.

  4. Kristina Herold says

    October 23, 2022 at 4:16 PM

    Tis sweet but brief opener for “Braveheart” by Laura Oliver takes me back to my pre-teen era. We didn’t have a dock or a boat, but friends of my parents did. They often offered a weekend in the sun on their big yacht. It had an afterdeck. That was MY spot. I loved crabbing there, under the watchful eyes of the adults. I too used string and chicken necks. And I’m pretty sure the Captain knew exactly where the crabs would be; because when we got to that sweet spot for crabs. I had a hard time pulling them in fast enough and retying the….chicken necks with the slipknot I had learned from the Captain. So, following tradition the women started getting out tables, covering paper over tables, crab hammers and picks, paper towels, lots and lots of paper towels. When the unexpected happened: we had no pickling spices nor any vinegar. Also, no horseradish, no kecthup! Both my mother and I were sobbing at the loss of our long-awaited crab feast. And what were we going to do with all the crabs? No worries, the Captain pulled in to the next tie-up, where there was a big restaurant right in front of us. My mother and the Captain’s wife went inside to talk with the chef. Then they emerged with a two-gallon bottle of ready-made pickling spices, ketchup, and horseradish Everthing we needed for our feast in the in the middle of the Susquehanna. And a FEAST it was!

    • Laura Oliver says

      October 23, 2022 at 6:32 PM

      Ah ha! Sometimes you’re the hero, sometimes the hero comes to you! Glad the enterprising captain and generous chef saved the day. Thanks for writing!

  5. Ernest Wilson says

    October 23, 2022 at 4:21 PM

    What a beautiful, well written piece!

    • Laura Oliver says

      October 23, 2022 at 6:33 PM

      Thank you!

  6. darrell Parsons says

    October 23, 2022 at 5:59 PM

    “Long days and unremarkable years of loving in the most ordinary of ways, steadfast and unacknowledged”. Yes! Those are the heroes!

    • Laura Oliver says

      October 23, 2022 at 6:34 PM

      Indeed! Thanks for writing.:)

  7. Nancy Prendergast says

    October 23, 2022 at 11:05 PM

    A beautifully written story, Laura! I love your positive and wise way of viewing life.

    • Laura Oliver says

      October 24, 2022 at 1:08 PM

      Thank you, Nancy!

  8. Sharon Maiorana says

    October 25, 2022 at 12:11 PM

    You are a treasure, Laura. Thank you for this great shared memory and the fine fettle of thoughts in which you nest it

    • Laura J Oliver says

      October 27, 2022 at 5:53 PM

      Thank you, Sharon! I’m lucky to have had sisters with whom to experience this!

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