Most of us in the news biz are pretty hard to surprise. We pride ourselves on our worldliness, our understanding of How Things Work. There’s a whole segment of the business, often called the “punditocracy,” that claims to know so much that its members can predict the future (although few have a track record that’s any better than a coin flip).

Imagine, then when we’re confronted with people like Antoinette Tuff, the school bookkeeper who talked a heavily armed, disturbed man out of hurting anybody when he took over the Georgia school at which she worked.

Jerks rule so much of the world, and get so much press, that reporters often run out of synonyms for “slimebag.” It’s hard to find words that convey, for example, the loathsomeness of the folks at the Westboro Baptist Church.

It’s an odd feeling, then, to try to describe Antoinette Tuff. There simply are no adequate words to describe what she did. But unlike in most stories, when you try to find some words, they’re complimentary.

The most obvious word, of course, is courage. What she did was undoubtedly courageous, but somehow that word doesn’t quite fit the bill. It was some sort of weird mashup of courage and what can only be called love – love for the gunman, who held her life in his hands – that enabled her to defuse a situation that has caused death in the double digits nearly everywhere else it’s happened.

As a reporter, one gets to meet a lot of high-powered folks – celebrities, politicians, jocks, titans of business – who move in rarified realms. They are people who see and do things few of us mere mortals ever see and do. But really, the people who give you the biggest thrill are people like Tuff. They’re people who live their daily lives anonymously, who in most cases would make the paper only when their obit runs. But every so often, such people are called on to face challenges most of us can’t even imagine. And they not only meet the challenge, they win decisively.

And often as not, when it’s all over they deny being heroes. They’ll tell you they’re nobody special, that they do what anybody else would do in that situation. They don’t even seem to realize that they’ve done something amazing.

I once interviewed the family of a man who was in the late stages of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig ’s disease. It’s a truly horrible way to die. The sufferer’s body slips away bit by bit but the mind stays clear until the end. Having seen it kill more than one person, it scares me more than any other disease.

I sat in the living room of the man’s house, interviewing him as he lay in his hospital bed, which had been placed in the corner of the room, and talking to his wife and two sons. They were amazing. I think of the interview often, particularly when times are tough for me. These people had courage in spades, but part of what impressed me was something they didn’t have. I have never met anyone who suffered so greatly but was so totally lacking in anything like self-pity. These four people were dealing with one of life’s most horrible burdens, yet they did it with an amount of grace and sense, even with an abundance of humor. They actually were able to look almost unimaginable physical and spiritual suffering in the face and laugh at it.

Now, we all like to think we’d react that way, but we all know few people really do. I’m convinced it’s partially a matter of having won some sort of spiritual lottery. Just as some people seem to be born under an unlucky star, some seem to have been born with a special well of … whatever it is.

“Courage” is the most commonly heard word to describe such people, but I’m not sure it fits. The word “courage” implies a choice and few people who find themselves in a desperate situation would choose it. I suppose they exercise choice in how they react, and there’s courage in that, but there seems to be something more at work. It’s a sort of indefinable quality that brings out not just the better, but the best angels of a person’s nature.

One of the amazing things about listening to Tuff talk that guy off the ledge was her ability to make a human connection with the guy. She told him – and there was not a smidgen of insincerity in her voice – that she loved him and she was proud of him for surrendering. It occurred to me when I heard that that it might have been the only time in the man’s life that anybody had told him that. And in a moment of perhaps unintentional humor, she even pointed out that her mother’s maiden name was the same as the gunman’s last name (it’s not like they could have been related, given that Tuff is black and the gunman white).

And it worked, better than anyone could have hoped. Not one person died in the incident. Other than the gunman, who was a deeply mentally ill man desperately seeking help, nobody even required medical attention.

There probably are some lessons to be learned from Antoinette Tuff. There are practical lessons about how to deal with a madman, for example. But really, what she did was so amazing that all most of us can do is admire her, and hope we would do the same if we ever were in a similar situation. I don’t think most of us would, but it’s nice to see somebody do it. It gives us hope, no small thing in times like ours.

tpantera@yahoo.com