I got to thinking about how the Romans did it.  A hole was broken in the wall around Rome just for the entrance of a new hero. Another extreme was the Soviet Union making a hero of a coal miner, Alexsei Stakhanov, because he sacrificed all his time to furtherance of Mother Russia by working two or more shifts and had no life of his own. In the middle there are the worthy Nobel Prizes

So, when I got to thinking about awards I was shocked, as I am sure the rest of you were horrified, to learn that some mere CEO’s of business concerns were given rewards of millions and billions of dollars in compensation for making millions and billions of dollars for their shareholders.  I can’t quite make the connection with warriors and CEO’s but the principle is the same: they do remarkable things to get their country or their company out of trouble and they get a huge, special recognition.  So, my thoughts turned to remarkable ORDINARY Americans who do remarkable things that a prize to distinguish them for being better than the average CEO or General or (God forbid!) politician, should be developed. Why leave it to the Swedes to spend the money made by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of the destructive dynamite, to recognize leaders in music, art, and literature and world peace?  Why can we not have some modest medallion created which would mark out the achiever in the fields mentioned above – and from the vast number of 300,000,000 Americans who now inhabit our borders?

I think we should have a Nobel of our own.  I am not thinking of a name at this point but this would be an annual award to those individuals or their groups who achieve good things for OTHERS rather than self advancement.

What is particularly galling is the disparity between the payments to Chief officials of extraordinarily rich companies and the workers who produce the wealth in the first place.  What is so different between work at opposite ends of the compensation scale that one should be enriched beyond belief while the other labors – sometimes in drudgery that is beyond belief?

My thought is that Americans can afford to stamp out those medallions worn on a chain around the neck or a pin that can be attached to a shirt, blouse or jacket collar in order to distinguish the achiever from the vast majority of followers we have here in America.  It won’t cost much and the incentive to win such a recognition would boost self-esteem and make work that much sweeter for more than the tiny number of CEO’s who are gifted with prizes that equal getting their private entrance into the City of Rome. Stakhanov was an anomaly. He needed a life.  Too many go unrecognized; too many are enriched at the expense of others.