John, Legend: Remembering John McClane
Celebrating a Deathday™: If you're anything like Yours Truly Dooley® — a nobleman of virtuous character, cast-iron constitution and elevated testosterone — you'll remember being struck by the passing of John McClane on this day (August 26, 2018). Whether you believe that a flag honouring him should have flown half mast, fully staffed or worn like a cape off the back of bloody Superman, surely we can all agree now that Detective Lieutenant McClane — "Senator McClane" to his mates on the NYPD — was a hero nonpareil. Those of us in law enforcement ‘round the globe remember John McClane as a never-say-die-hard maverick who fought the forces of evil — whether bare-chested or bullet-proof vested — fearlessly, tirelessly. Yet this brave, former POW was a human prone to frailty like any other, and when his dalliances with private investigator Maddie Hayes and news reporter Jackie Templeton became public, jeopardizing his marriage to the curlicued pixie Holly Gennero, McClane would make crime-fighting history, as his valiant efforts to win back the heart of his missus — who'd left her womanizing mister for employ at the Nakatomi Corporation in Los Angeles — landed him in the middle of a deadly terrorist takeover. McClane's mission that Christmas Eve is the stuff of legends, from the moment the harmonica-blowing, wine-cooler chug-a-lugging wisecracker first secured the services of the argyle-socked airport limo driver who wasn’t Danny Glover to when McClane stared down the villainous Hans Gruber atop the tower, risking life and oily limb to save the hostages at the Nakatomi Holiday party. Gruber and his heavily armed team of thick-accented Germanic scowlers — Gerhard, Günter, Heinz, Helmut, Karl, Klaus, Werner, Wilhelm and Uli Jon Roth, multi-scarved guitar virtuoso for the Scorpions® — along with Alexander “Good Enough” — found they had met their match in the sneak-attacking McClane, who would crawl 'round the HVAC system without a Google Map, only assorted Lethal Weapons and a butane lighter in tow! At the end of the night, the criminals got a fistful o’ McClane and John and Ms. Gennero would soon be knockin’ boots in the Nakatomi honeymoon suite. (Happy Christmas to all and to all a nighty-night!) Today, the station house extends its sympathies and respectfully honours the life and death of one of our own. A Citizen Patrolman™ laid to rest on his birthday, no less. Lieutenant John McClane was a servant of the people and serve and protect ably did he. Serving up prickly one liners with smarty-panted aplomb as well. Happy Anni-hearse-ary™ and yippy-ki-yay, Mother Trucker. Yippy-ki-yay.
