Don Imus--A Personal Hero of My (formerly) Three-Year-Old Daughter

Years ago, my youngest daughter, Elizabeth, who is now 10, fell in love for the first time. Not with Barny. Not with the four-year-old boy next door. Not even with me. Instead, she fell in love with a, by his own admission, "wrinkled-up old fool" named Don Imus.

Libby fell in love with him because of two things: mild salsa and kids who were dying. As I drove her and her older sisters around in the morning, the voice of the I-Man was nearly always with us. Libby first expressed her feelings in the supermarket when she saw the turqoise buffalo on a jar of salsa.

"I-Man, I-Man, I-Man," she called out, pointing a chubby little fist. Being a sucker for fat fists, I immediately put the Imus Brothers Salsa in the cart. It was and is, I must admit, damn good salsa. Still, the kicker for Libbby was that, to her little mind, the money we spent on salsa was going directly to help little kids who were dying.

Sure, as a family we had supported the Make-A-Wish Foundation, with its visits to Disney World or autograph sessions from football stars, all directed at terminally-ill kids. The Imus Ranch, thgouh, was different. Kids didn't go there to be treated like hothouse flowers; they went there to learn to be real, live cowboys. To Libby, who still would give up five years of her own life (and ten years of either of her sister's lives) for a pony, this sounded like a perfect culmination for a life cut short.

I understand that Don Imus said some dumb and inflammatory things last week. Don Imus says some dumb and inflammatory things every day. Still, the work he has done for children regardless of race should be entered in the equation. If the good works of Don Imus' life were to be set next to those of, say, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Howard Stern, Keith Olbermann or any other entertaining bloviater, I am certain his pile would be bigger than that of the others combined.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "By their fruits shall you know them." Don Imus has planted, and helped dying kids harvest, some pretty damn good fruit. Please don't throw them out in any rush to judgement.