It started in a bathroom.
October 1983. I was a freshman backup on the football team, and that night was Parents' Night. Halftime rolled around, and like clockwork, we all poured into the locker room for chalk talk or a sprint to the bathroom.
As it happened, only two of us ended up in there at the same time: me and our starting halfback, an all-conference star.
He left.
I stayed.
And when I tried to follow him out, the doorknob spun in my hand like a roulette wheel.
No click.
No open.
Just metal spinning in place.
An assistant coach walked by and hollered, "Coach is starting!" I yelled back, "Coach, the door won't open! I can't get out!"
He snorted. "Yeah, right, Dave."
That was my reputation. Evidently, it wasn't heroic.
But in that moment, with the door locked and the game resuming, a strange American truth revealed itself: When something breaks, when something fails, when someone is trapped, someone else always steps up.
When Evil Rises
We live in an age where evil wears everyday clothes. Just recently, in Denver, a man threw Molotov cocktails at people supporting Israel.
Turn on the news, and you'll find acts of cruelty so routine they've become background noise. It’s easy to believe that the darkness is winning.
But that’s not the complete story.
The Brave and the Untrained
There’s a nine-year-old boy in Ohio named Oliver Ware who saw his pregnant mother collapse from a seizure.
No combat training.
No CPR certification.
Just courage.
He called 911.
He followed every instruction.
He kept her alive until help arrived. She and the baby lived because he refused to freeze.
In Newport News, Va., a teenager named Matthew Wilson saw fire creeping through his apartment building.
Instead of running, he knocked on doors. Banged on windows. He woke up families and led more than a dozen people to safety.
He became a lighthouse in smoke.
And in Arkansas, a three-year-old girl slipped and tumbled down a waterfall.
It was the kind of scene parents dread: rocks, rushing water, screams.
A stranger, still unnamed, dove in.
He wasn’t a lifeguard.
He didn’t have gear.
But he pulled her out and saved her life.
These are not professional rescuers.
They’re not soldiers or EMTs or police officers.
These are everyday people doing uncommon things.
And they live among us.
A Silo, a Gas, a Hero
I know because I’m related to a few.
One of my cousins runs a dairy farm. Another works beside him.
One day, both were near a silo when the air turned deadly.
That’s not a figure of speech.
Silage, a fermented feed for cattle, releases gas as it breaks down. That gas includes nitrogen dioxide, which is heavier than air and, in high concentrations, is lethal.
My cousins passed out almost instantly.
One face-first in a mud puddle.
One sprawled 30 feet above on the silo platform.
By sheer providence, a third cousin stopped by the farm. He saw the one in the puddle and dragged him out. Then he looked up and saw the second.
These are big men with muscle and grit, not a soft ounce between them.
And yet the third cousin climbed that tower, hoisted the unconscious one over his shoulder, and carried him down the narrow ladder.
He saved their lives.
He was later honored with a plaque by the fire department. But to his credit, he didn’t want any recognition.
To this day, it’s a story he never tells.
But we remember.
The Custodian’s Code
We forget, sometimes, that the heart of America doesn’t beat in a marble rotunda or echo from cable news panels.
It pumps on farms.
In apartments.
In bathrooms with stuck doorknobs.
Yes, I got out.
Eventually, someone finally said the phrase that solves every problem in small towns: "Let’s get Lenny."
Lenny was the school custodian. A quiet genius of utility and patience.
He slid a tool under the door and taught me, through the metal and under pressure, how to take off a doorknob from the inside.
A twist, a click, and the door opened.
He and I stared at each other on our knees, eye to eye.
All I could say was, "Lenny!"
That night, I jogged back to the sideline and heard something unexpected: a standing ovation. My coach found me during a play, stuck out his hand, and said, "Welcome back, Dave Manney."
From that point forward, whenever I saw Lenny, whether at school, the grocery store, or at church, I’d tell whoever was nearby, "This man saved my life."
It was always said with a grin. A light-hearted way of acknowledging his humanity.
I’m not diminishing anyone’s sacrifice when I say that. But sometimes, saying something out loud, even in jest, is how we remind ourselves who the good people are.
The American Response
That’s what America does when you get out. We cheer for each other’s return.
So let the Molotovs fly. Let the cynics crow. Let evil flex.
We’ve got Lenny.
We’ve got Oliver.
We’ve got cousins and kids and strangers diving into rivers.
We’ve got heroes in our midst.
When darkness rises, America doesn’t run.
We climb.
We knock on doors.
We dial 911.
We get Lenny.
And we open the door.
