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This week has been long, hard, and sad for the family of Ronald Reagan and for our country. As Mike Mitchell has said, we are game designers, publishers, and players, and we tend to try to keep our politics out of this site and our work. But also as Mike has said, we were of age when Reagan was in office. People called him “A cowboy,” and in a sense he was. In a world that was filled with rulers that oppressed the innocent folks in their lands (much like the old Western days when the bad guys wore black hats and terrorized the innocent folks of some small out-of-the-way Western cow-town) it was a time when we needed someone to wear a white hat. We needed a hero. We needed a good guy. And along came Ronald Reagan.
Like the straight shooter out of the Old West, he saw things in simple “good” and “bad,” and like a Marshal wearing a white hat, he took to cleaning up the town. But in the process, he taught us a lot. He taught us that we as people could achieve great things if we set our hearts and our minds toward a goal. He made us believe in our country once again, and most of all, he told us it was all right to “believe in ourselves.” With strong words, and strong action, he backed up his promises and stood firm his ground for what he believed in. In this day and age, that is a true essence of character. That is a true definition of the word, “hero.” When the dust finally settled, the biggest of the black hatted bad guys was turning in his guns, and the rest of his gang of owlhoot cohorts were hightailing it out of town. And in real life, the same happened. Because of this man, millions of people in Eastern Europe and around the world were granted the real taste of freedom for the first time in their lives. He was our white hat wearing Marshal that made our country a better place, and the entire world, a safer place. And when his job was done, he smiled, and rode off into the sunset as all the heroes do. But he was also a lot more than that. He was also a man that could smile and lighten your mood with a good story or joke. His words could lift your spirits and make you feel good once again. He could easily laugh with you at himself, for he realized that “no one was perfect,” especially him. He was also a loving husband and family man, and deeply devoted to his faith. All of these virtues made up the essence of his character. In this way, he is as much a part of our site as much as anything else. And in this way, I am proud to say that I believe in his dreams for our country, and his optimism for our future. Thank you Mr. President for a job well done. Thank you Marshal for wearing your white hat and cleaning up our one-horse town. Thank you for wearing the white hat. Thank you for being our hero. Michael T. Murphy |
