“You wanna be
Where you can see
Our troubles
Are all the same”
“Where Everybody Knows Your Name” - Gary Portnoy

Part of a trend in the 1980s that bled into the early 1990s, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” was a theme song for a television show so popular that the song actually reached charting status. The song, if you don’t know, is the theme song for the iconic television sitcom “Cheers,” which ran for eleven seasons from September 1982 to May 1983.

Portnoy and songwriting partner Judy Hart Angelo worked together and wrote three potential theme songs for the show, and this one was the one selected. Portnoy had some credits to his name previously, with songs recorded by Air Supply and multiple songs from the television series “Fame.” He would go on to write the theme songs for two more 1980s iconic shows, “Punky Brewster” and “Mr. Belvedere.”

“Cheers” is set in a bar in Boston with a host of characters who weave in and out of the show, but a few of the constants were bartender Sam Malone, played by Ted Danson, waitress Carla Tortelli, played by Rhea Perlman, and two regulars at the bar, the first a post office worker named Cliff Clavin, played by John Ratzenberger, and finally, an accountant named Norm Peterson, played by George Wendt.

Wendt passed away last week at 76 years old. While he would go on to have nearly 200 acting credits on his resume, he’s most known for his role as Norm, and there are two iconic moments associated with the character that endured long after the series. The first is, of course, that every time Norm entered the bar, all who were present hollered out his name - “NORM!”

The second didn’t come until the very last episode of the series, when Wendt delivered a speech that has been replayed many times since his passing on May 20.

After the rest of the customers leave the bar after a closing party, Sam and Norm are left alone when this conversation occurs.

Norm: “Sam, I didn’t want to say this in front of everyone else, but do you know what I think the most important thing in life is? It’s love. And do you want to know what I love?”

Sam: “Beer, Norm?”

Norm (checks his watch): “Yeah, I’ll have a quick one.”

Norm, continuing: “Y’know, Sammy, I love that stool (referencing his usual seat at the bar)! If there’s a heaven, I don’t want to go there unless my stool is waiting for me.”

Just as you thought this would be a moment joking about drinking or avoiding problems at work or home, Norm turns the conversation into one of the most memorable moments of modern television.

Norm: “I don’t think it matters what you love, Sammy. It could be a person. It could be a thing. As long as you love it totally, completely, and without judgment.”

This coming month will have plenty of moments for people to loudly proclaim their dislike or even hate of someone because of who they are. June is traditionally Pride month, commemorating the Stonewall Riots of June 1969. The month also has Juneteenth as a federal holiday, remembering the emancipation of enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865, and celebrated annually since.

Though it has only recently been made a federal holiday, celebrations of Juneteenth predate recognized Memorial Day celebrations, so it’s nothing new in the country. Likewise, Pride celebrations have been happening longer than the holiday has been officially called Memorial Day in the country (1971).

A former coach once told me that leaders have two ways to encourage people to follow - gas and diesel.

His explanation was that focusing on a mission together and turning efforts toward a common goal through the similarities of a group was the diesel. It’d take a bit to get going, but it was a steady, strong fire once it got burning.

Focusing a mission purely on hate or anger toward the other team or “others” that may be encountered in life was like gas. The fire would start quicker, but it could be explosive, and there was a good chance that any one of those explosions could ignite a whole different fire of anger or hate and simply begin a fireball that was incredibly difficult to reign back in and focus.

I’d posit that the gas and diesel comparison fits very well with Norm’s comments. Everyone has someone or something that they love. It’s not up to you or me to stoke up others with hate and anger to exclude them from personhood because of who or what they love. We can work together with all people to make big changes if we can find similarities and move forward with those similarities.

Something Sen. Mike Rounds said this week when he was in town for the dedication of the post office caught my ear, so I had to have him repeat it. He was discussing the changes that Congress is working to make with appropriations. Rounds stated that “our Democratic friends” also want to see changes to the appropriations process and working together could change the system in a positive way. I found it so refreshing that someone coming from the mess that D.C. has become would refer to the opposing party as “friends” that I asked him to repeat.

Unfortunately, Sen. Rounds took that as a question on the Democrats’ desire for change and discussed that instead, but even then, there was a discussion of working together for the long haul, not short term “wins” that satisfy a particular faction of a party but may be obviously short-sighted in the view of history.

Most won’t realize that Portnoy released a full-length version of “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” that charted on the Billboard Hot 100. The lyrics of that version of the song made reference to a cross-dressing man. “Cheers” handled homosexuality and race with some cringy comments looking back now, but they were also accepting in a way shows of that era typically were not.

So, this coming month, rather than making a social media post ripping on the very existence of people of different sexual orientations or different races, consider what Norm said, and work to love all fellow humans, “totally, completely, and without judgment.”