A Few Good Men

     One December morning not many years ago, A girl excitedly stands in the crowd at a popular morning show, her father by her side. She shakes the hand of a famous newscaster, who at that time is quite beloved by many people. It is her first celebrity encounter, and in her young mind it is a very big deal. That newscaster will later lose his credibility when he is accused of unspeakable things, at a time when it is becoming very common for men in the public eye to be accused of unspeakable things.
     When she hears of why this celebrity is under fire, it will at first send shivers down her spine to know that his hand briefly touched hers. But her mind will soon turn to other memories of that New York trip at Christmas time with her father. She was at an age when many girls would rather do almost anything than go on a trip with their father, but she still wanted to. Because there is something inherently similar about the two of them that she can't quite name, and they make great travel companions.
     That women would ever need to protect themselves from men is not something she had to learn at home. The men in her home were not perfect, but they were almost always kind, and she never had reason to fear them. Often when she is sitting in training sessions and the topic of what women should watch out for in the workplace and how they should protect themselves comes up, she will think of the men in her home, and how they allowed her so many years of ignorant bliss. Yes, the idea that women would ever need to protect themselves from men is not something she had to learn at home, and the more people she meets, and the more she learns about the world, the more she realizes how fortunate she is.
     She can no longer live in a state of ignorance, because she is a woman living in a world where the hard truth means that there are certain things women need to be aware of. But when the harsh realizes of the world start to be overwhelming, and being a grown woman starts to sound like an intimidating task in this broken world, her mind will turn to the good men she knows and she will be comforted. Because even though the guys who do bad things are the ones who make the news, her world is filled with a few good men, and that is enough to keep her hope alive.