‘Subject to Change’

VIEWPOINT

Y ou ever expect something and get something else instead? Probably so. We’ve all been there. I remember once, when I was a kid, we went over to the Cook Convention Center in Memphis for one of those cool Custom Auto Shows. Remember those? I don’t know if they are still a thing but back in the ’80s, you could always look forward to those because they not only had cool cars and such, but for some reason, they also always had celebrity appearances.

Anyway, they had been hyping this thing for a while by the time it finally came to the Saturday in question, so I was pretty hyped. To give you an idea of when this was, one of the featured attractions was the General Lee, the awesome car from “The Dukes of Hazzard.” I won’t get into the “political correctness” of the Dixie car horn or the Confederate flag paint job, but let’s just all agree that for the time, this was a pretty big deal. And I’ll admit, I was pretty hyped to see the car the good old Duke Boys used to evade Roscoe P. Coltrane and the rest of the police force, but the thing I was most looking forward to was special guest Lou Ferrigno. If that name means nothing to you, maybe this name does … The Incredible Hulk.

You see, back in the day, before there were more super-hero movies and shows than you could shake a stick at, it was a pretty rare thing to see one of your comic book heroes on TV, outside of the cartoons anyway. There was the campy Adam West “Batman” TV show, the Lynda Carter “Wonder Woman” TV show, and the occasional “Superman” movie. And that was about it, except for this super-cheezy-even-forthe- seventies “Spider-Man” series. So, “The Incredible Hulk” TV show was not only a super-hero show that featured the mean green machine himself, it was actually a really good drama about a man who had lost everything and was looking for redemption and inner peace while trying to control the (literal) monster inside him.

Well, when mild-mannered David Bruce Banner got angry (which managed to happen every episode at least once), Bill Bixby’s Dr. Banner would be replaced with The Hulk, portrayed by bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno. And even without special effects or CGI, Lou managed to portray a pretty credible Incredible Hulk. So, getting a chance to meet this guy was a pretty big deal for me.

Now, as you can probably guess from the title of this column, things did not go as planned. We did get to touch the General Lee. We also got to meet wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler, the “Six Million Dollar Man” Steve Austin (or rather Lee Majors), and a few other celebs that I can’t really remember (we went to a few of these things over the years and they’ve kind of smooshed together in my mind, like when we got to sit in KITT from the “Knight Rider” show later on). But unfortunately, Lou Ferrigno was a no-show.

I’m sure they offered us a perfectly legitimate reason for his absence, but I don’t recall what it was. I do remember, after some dad got snippy about it, a floor director of some sort repeatedly reminding us that the schedule of appearances was “subject to change.” I distinctly remember the guy calmly but emphatically almost chanting “Subject to change, sir. Subject to change.” We did still get to have our faces painted green (like the Hulk) and there was plenty of other stuff to see, so it’s not like the day was ruined or anything.

But we do run into this sort of thing a lot. I’ve been to Universal Studios (which was a big trip for us) and a couple of the big rides were not in service that particular day. I’ve also been to concerts where the advertised lineup had a no-show (because of this, I never did get to see Ratt perform live). The same thing with wrestling shows and baseball games. But they print it right there in the advertising (in real small print) “Subject to change.”

I said all of that to say this … we are in a crazy time in history. A lot has changed over the past year, and most would say not for the better. It’s easy to get discouraged. I know at the end of last year, we were all looking forward to 2020. It had a nice ring to it, somehow more hopeful and even kind of futuristic, like we were about to turn some kind of corner. Of course, that corner now seems more like a cliff.

But don’t be discouraged. With COVID-19, political turmoil, social unrest and whatever else is troubling you, like everything else, it is … subject to change.