Why We Love Rocky

In 1976, Rocky Balboa graced the big screen and became an instant hit. The Italian Stallion showed us that the underdog can prevail. For the past few months the Rocky franchise of movies has been shown all over and again on the Starz & Encore movie networks. Usually, one would say enough is enough when it seems every time you turn on the channel a Rocky movie is playing. However, I find myself in the position that every time I am channel surfing and I stumble upon one of them I have to stop and watch. It doesn't matter how many hundreds of times I have seen these movies, I just cannot look away.

That got me to wondering if other people felt that way and if so, then why? Why such a fascination to continually watch Rocky get a beating and come back to kick major ass? Does he make us feel better personally? Maybe what is really going on is that there is a little piece of Rocky Balboa in every one of us yearning to cry out and say, "One More Round, you son of a bitch"!

Perhaps. More likely though as I pondered this thought and fell asleep to Rocky II after watching Rocky V (no particular order necessary after the 200th time seeing them), that we as a collective of people..Americans need Rocky. Rocky is our hope that when everything around us seems to be quickly falling down the toilet, that we can prevail. We can survive because we, as Americans, have that eye of the tiger.

Apply this to our time. We are staring down a fully loaded shotgun. Wars, oil spills, environmental disasters, global warming, health care crisis and one of the worst presidents steering the locomotive. It makes you feel like we should place a blind-fold over our eyes and light a cigarette.

Is that what Rocky did? Did he give up? Did he throw in the towel? No, he had a great voice on his shoulder giving him words of wisdom to push forward with. So go ahead, pick yourselves up and wipe the sweat away and get ready for a comeback of a lifetime. We can all be our own personal Rockys and do our part to change the country. It is our duty as Americans to do that. Who's with me? I'm going in.....