Lloyd Garver

A year from now, most people will have no idea who Stephen Slater is. However, today he's a hero to thousands of people. He's the JetBlue flight attendant who lost his temper, quit his job while on duty, grabbed some beer, activated the emergency chute, and slid to fame. Why did a guy like this become a hero to so many people?

In these economic times, it might seem strange that someone would throw away a job. I'm sure there are unemployed people and others with backbreaking jobs who can't identify at all with what Slater did. On the other hand, many people today feel that management is taking advantage of workers. Employers know how hard it is to get a job today, so they hire people at lower wages with fewer benefits. As a result, there are considerable ill feelings towards employers today.

I'm not defending what Slater did. I'm just trying to understand it. However, there are many people who are defending him, even though he broke the law. They are thrilled by the way he quit, and see him as a hero. He did what many working people fantasize doing. He put into action the words of the old Johnny Paycheck song, "Take This Job And Shove It."

There is a tradition in America to turn those who break the law into heroes. Jesse James was a folk hero. Bonnie and Clyde were, too. Don't forget D.B. Cooper. He was the guy who hijacked a plane, got $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted out of the plane with the money.

Americans don't (hero) worship just anybody who breaks the law. Those who are admired are people whose actions are audacious and aimed primarily at "the man," government, big institutions, or corporations like banks, railroads, and now airlines. If someone steals the money from the cash register of a little store, nobody is going to make that thief a hero. But if a meek doorman at Goldman Sachs ingeniously figures out a way to get into the vault and steal millions of dollars on his lunch hour, he becomes an instant hero.

I don't think it's a particularly good thing that Americans make heroes out of these people, but that's the reality. And speaking of reality, it's no surprise that there are rumors that Slater will be in a TV reality show soon. He already has a Hollywood publicist named Howard Bragman. (How perfect is "Bragman" for the name of a publicist)? According to Bragman, they're getting all kinds of show business offers, and they'll deal with them once Slater takes care of his pesky criminal charges.

I'm sure he could do commercials for all kinds of products. He could definitely help sell the kind of beer he grabbed from the plane -- Blue Moon. But if I were the head of JetBlue, I'd hire Slater and make sure that his contract was exclusive. Then I'd put him in a JetBlue flight attendant's uniform, and he'd say on camera, "Everybody makes mistakes, even JetBlue. Sometimes we're late. Sometimes we over book. Sometimes we accidentally seat you 20 rows from your three-year-old. But whenever JetBlue happens to make a mistake, I think you should forgive them -- just as JetBlue has forgiven me." Then he'd grab a couple of beers, and slide down a chute.

It's definitely the smart way to go. You see, if a big corporation like JetBlue were to forgive someone who embarrassed them like this, and if they made fun of themselves in the process, well, there's a good chance JetBlue would become a folk hero.

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Glenn Close going crazy in "Fatal Attraction" was a cautionary tale for any man considering a casual affair in the late '80s. Today, the repercussions of Tiger Woods' affairs should be enough to discourage men from cheating on their wives. When statisticians do their work on the subject, I'll bet we'll see a dip in the number of unfaithful male spouses for the years immediately after Tiger's foolish philandering. This upswing in marital fidelity won't be because men are going to worry about the money they might have to give up if their wives find out they have strayed. It's not because of the possible effect on their children. It's not because they might lose the woman they love if they get caught doing some free-Lance mattress testing. No, what will terrorize millions of men about having an affair and getting caught is how this might affect their golf game.

There are an estimated 25 million men who play golf in the United States. For many of them, golf is like life and death, except more important. They spend thousands of dollars hoping to improve their score by one or two strokes. If you told them that their game would fall apart if they did something, they simply wouldn't do that thing. Well, if Tiger is any example, their golf game would fall apart if they were unfaithful and got caught. It's possible that Tiger could win the final tournament of the year, but even if he does, that's only one tournament. I don't think that's enough to make the guy with the custom golf cart and the beer belly take his eyes off his wife now.

Most of us don't know for certain what happened to Tiger this past Thanksgiving weekend. We know that in the middle of the night, Tiger smashed his Escalade into the fire hydrant near his driveway. Then his wife either attacked him with a golf club, or heroically used the club to smash open the window to rescue him. It all took place a few days after the "National Enquirer" reported that Tiger was having an affair, but I guess it's possible she was in a rescuing mood.

For years, Tiger Woods has been a favorite in every golf tournament that he's entered. This year has been very, very different for him. So far this year, he's 12th in scoring, 111

in greens in regulation, and 93rd in putts per hole. When an everyday golfer sees those statistics, his reaction has got to be something like, "That beautiful new neighbor would probably make me feel younger, but so would a new driver."

Golfers have to feel that if the greatest golfer in the world has a game that's fallen apart because of his compulsive couplings, the ordinary golfer probably wouldn't even be able to tell the difference between his putter and his bag if he cheated and got caught. Now, when millions of golfers tell their wives that the reason they were still playing after dark was because the course was crowded, they'll actually be telling the truth.

Future PhD theses will try to answer the question of whether Tiger's game suffered because he cheated or because he got caught. Even though some purists might point out that Tiger's game did not fall apart until he got caught, I doubt that those who really care about golf are going to take that chance. They'll do everything they can to avoid Tiger's fate. If they have a subscription to the "National Enquirer," they'll cancel it. If they own an Escalade, they'll sell it. If their house is near a fire hydrant, they'll move.

Generally speaking, golfers consider cheating to be a terrible offense. The kind of cheating I'm talking about involves things like kicking the ball to get a better shot or not counting a stroke because they hiccupped during their back swing. This kind of cheating is totally unacceptable to golfers. And since they learned how to avoid cheating on the golf course, there's no reason why they can't learn to avoid it in the rest of their lives. From now on, when you think you hear a golfer say he wants to "play around," what he probably said is that he wants to "play a round."

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