Wilders

Yes, I declined the role of Gilda Radner, the iconic cancer victim and SNL regular who was also the wife of Gene Wilder. The only Wilders I ever knew were Jeff and Barbara, my sixth grade classmate. I had such a good time at her birthday party the one year they were there in El Salvador, her brother Jeff and Jody Houk being the ones who imposed a military system upon us at the little school. That system makes eighth graders Jeff and Jody the general, Susie the seventh grader was maybe a colonel and we sixth graders were maybe lieutenants. And what were my cousins' rankings? I am not sure. They never talk about that in specific terms, only about what the army does for them, never about what they did for the army or why we should care. The army always has need of warm bodies to fill the private ranks so that's nice but leadership requires a lot more than brawn. Just buzzing around in a helicopter is not going to solve all of these problems. I lost track of Jeff and Barbara after sixth grade. I hope they lived happily ever after but I somehow imagine that Jeff did not quite make it to rank of general. Sometimes we have to give up our eighth grade illusions of grandeur to find something better.