Beware the Helots

The title character in the 1941 classic, “Meet John Doe,” wasn’t actually named John Doe. Gary Cooper played the part of an injured major league baseball hopeful named Long John Willoughby who accepted an ambitious newspaperwoman’s offer to pretend to be Doe in return for food and a little cash.

Released near the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II, this film covered a lot of bases. Later a fervent anti-Communist in real life, Cooper portrayed a straight shooter who would have none of Communism or of fascism as introduced by the evil DB Norton whose pet motorcycle patrol did everything short of wearing swastikas in their emulation of the Nazis.

Perched on Doe/Willoughby’s shoulder was the Colonel – played by ever-lovable Walter Brennan. The Colonel’s unfaltering message was, “let’s get back on the road where our only care is finding the next meal and our only pursuit is playing music.”

I was reminded of the Colonel this morning while searching for a label to apply to a broad category of folks whose mission in life seems to be to maintain the status quo, to enforce all rules regardless of circumstances, to challenge every attempt at diversity, to oppose progress, growth, development, innovation or any other form of change and to stand in the way of common sense, logic, reason and any method of decision-making other than adherence to tradition.

The Colonel discovered a way to divide the population into two groups: those who, like himself and Long John, traveled freely with no intent to create problems or even get involved with others beyond asking for the occasional handout or putting in a few hours performing an odd job now and then; and those who had bank accounts. He called the account-holders “Helots.”

Now, “Helot” actually is a proper noun from ancient times. Occupants of the lowest rank of citizens in Sparta were Helots. This is a far cry from the status of those the Colonel. And I suspect that the writers and director Frank Capra decided to use the term for the same reason I want to adopt it: it’s a great sounding insult-title.

The phrase, “Aw, he’s nothing but a gol-durned Helot!” just flows off the tongue. It’s probably because the word includes “heel” and nobody wants to be considered a heel.

Anyway, short story long, I’ve decided that my new pejorative title for the intransigent (one certainly can’t hope to wither an opponent with that kind of language) is HELOT.

And so, I will now identify the health care worker who ventured out into the grassy picnic area outside her hospital after midnight this morning to ask me to explain my presence (I was writing) and the library worker who, two hours ago told me that as a non-resident I could have only 30 minutes of Internet access despite the fact that the library was nearly empty … as HELOTS.

I feel much better now.