75-02-A5
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Rocky's Story
TranscriptLarry Steoart lost his wallet and money in the Chicago airport. He and his invalid son were stranded until a miracle happened. I'll be right back. I wonder if you're as fed up as I am with all the prophets of doom who have us living in a sick society wrapped up in selfish materialism. They sound like a line from the poem, The Shooting of Dan McGrew. You know the line. "Half dead things and a half dead world cling mad for the muck called gold." Well, as the song says, "It ain't necessarily so." There are any number of stories tucked away in the middle pages of our daily papers and even more that don't get printed at all about an America that's all around us. Every day, a different America than the one described by the doom criers. A journalism student learns that news stories are based on who, what, or where. For example, a 'who' story is one that's news because the person involved is famous or notorious. A 'where' story doesn't have to involve a famous person to be news it's the location that makes it newsworthy. A young man drives his car through a gate. He wasn't a well-known figure and hitting a gate isn't all that unusual but it's a story if it happened to be the White House gate. The 'what' story, of course, is about something that's happened. Some weeks ago the AP carried a 'what' story. Larry Steoart, a disabled construction worker, took a plane from Detroit to Chicago with his three-year-old son Rocky. He was taking him to a hospital there. Rocky is unable to control the muscles in his legs. When they arrived at O'Hare Airport, Larry discovered his billfold with eighty dollars was missing. He didn't even have money to get to the hospital. Stewardess Marcia Grieger was the first to learn of his plight. A hasty search of the plane failed to turn up the wallet. Before the plane continued on his way to phoenix Arizona the stewardess gave Larry Steoart 27 dollars and a half the crew had contributed for cab fare to the hospital. When she gave Larry the money he didn't want to take it, and only did so if he could have the names and addresses of the crew, in order to repay them. After the plane took off for Arizona, Miss Grieger asked some of the passengers to look around their seats for the missing wallet. They learned the whole story about Larry and Rocky and the missing money. One of the passengers suggested a collection. Almost instantly Marcia had 150 dollars in her hand. Then a man on the other side of the plane wanted to know what was going on. When he heard the story, he started collecting. A nine-year-old boy drew a get well card. Others asked for Rocky's address so they could write to him. The passengers were clapping and cheering as Marsha said, "It was beautiful but crazy." On the following Saturday, stewardess Marcia Grieger was back in the Midwest. She presented rocky's father with a set of stewardess wings, a chief pilot's wings, a letter to rocky that said, "Someday have your daddy tell you how 11 of us the crew and 240 passengers fell in love with a little guy most have not even seen. In the meantime if you ever get the feeling that the whole world is bad and no one cares, give these wings a long look." There was 426 dollars in the letter. Rocky's father, holding back his tears said it all. "I just forgot that people are like that." This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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