Aim to What?

Be good and you will be lonesome.
-Mark Twain

For those of you trying to puzzle out just what "Aim to Misbehave" means, I'll start by letting you know that it's a quote from a movie. I have a tendency to quote movies and song lyrics often, whether or not people catch the reference. Obviously.

We've talked a lot this year about heroes. One of my personal heroes is my mom. I know, it sounds cliche, but it's true. She recognized my father's great passion for fireworks and knew that it was something she could never take from him; so she decided to join instead.

In the late 80s, it was highly unusual for a woman to be part of a fireworks crew, but there she was. There were many weekends we traveled so my parents could help with a show downtown Buffalo. The shoot site was an empty lot. I remember tall buildings. They had to be careful because of the nearby highway; they didn't want fallout to interfere with traffic. The notes for the show were brief: fire fast as hell.

My mother threw in with the all male crew on countless shows. My brother and I helped dig holes and fill buckets with sand. We carried steel mortars and helped put them in the ground. We moved finale racks and hauled coolers. Neither of us were eighteen yet, so we had to hang back once the product was unloaded. We were usually near the firefighters. One of them went up to my mom after a show and said, "Honey, do they make you do that?" My mom didn't quite understand what was being asked. When she did, she assured him that she loved what she was doing. The firefighter told her she was crazy. My mom laughed and said, "You're the one that runs into burning buildings!"

Her behavior was unusual. It wasn't the "norm" for women to work on those crews, and more than once she had to prove herself to a new crew member. More than once she did. Over the years, it became less uncommon for women to work in the industry, but even in the 90s there were strange looks.

Where people saw something unusual, I saw normal. I saw an example. The day I turned eighteen, I went to a product demo at the fireworks company. I was presented with a four inch shell. I was told there was a six inch, if I wanted to fire that as well. I lit both. That summer, I joined my mother as a member of my father's show crew.

We weren't marching for women's rights, but we were challenging the norm, and in some eyes, we just may have been misbehaving.

Maybe at first glance "Aim to Misbehave" doesn't make sense. The Jaycees are about building leaders and creating a better global community by fostering active citizens. The phrase isn't about doing things to get away with them. These three words are about taking a stand. For those of you that have not watched the (short-lived) series Firefly and the movie Serenity, I highly encourage you to do so. Both are on Netflix. "Aim to Misbehave" comes from the movie. It's a quote from Captain Malcolm Reynolds as he's addressing the crew of his ship. Mal utters those words when he is faced with a choice. Something doesn't sit well with him, and he knows that he could turn a blind eye and continue as he is, or he could take a stand and make a difference:

"Y'all got on this boat for different reasons, but y'all come to the same place. So now I'm asking more of you than I have before. Maybe all. Sure as I know anything, I know this - they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people...better. And I do not hold to that. So no more runnin'. I aim to misbehave."