Heroes

Look, up in the sky!

Friday, May 13th, 2011 — Smallville, the latest entry in the eight-decade Superman saga, broadcast its series finale with Clark Kent taking the last steps on his journey to becoming the Man of Steel, while saving the world, getting the girl and writing the Pulitzer Prize-winning story about it – don't you just love a guy who can multi-task!

I admit it, freely; I was a total comic book geek as a kid.  I loved Superman, Batman, the Fantastic Four, Thor (I'm half Swede, I couldn't avoid that one if I tried) and a host of other superheroes from DC, Marvel, TV (Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, 8th Man, Astro Boy) and the movies (Commando Cody, Flash Gordon).  They were among my heroes – I looked up to them, I wanted to be like them, heck, I wanted to be them.

Of course, not all my heroes had super powers and spandex tights:

Capt. Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, the irreverent, but brilliant, doctor from M*A*S*H.  He was great.  My favorite line from the whole series was Hawkeye's response when asked why he made so many jokes:  "Sometimes, it's the only way I can open my mouth without screaming in terror" (or something like that).  To a skinny little kid who was targeted by every bully in school, to a young man who spent his life viewing the whole world as pro-actively hostile toward him, this was life-saving advice.  And, it wasn't just his humor, it was also his compassion (a level which I have yet to achieve); his passion for his work (which I think I have achieved) and his devotion to living life to the fullest whatever the circumstances (still working on that, too).

And, yes, you who know me have been expecting this – Commander Spock, the Vulcan/Human first officer of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek.  His cool logic; his brilliant mind; being a child of two worlds, never one nor the other, always feeling a little lost in either, all spoke to me very directly.  Anytime anyone comments on this blog or a Facebook post or my journalistic endeavors, saying something like "convincing argument" or "well-thought out article" or "clear and concise presentation"; I credit that "green-blooded, pointy-eared Vulcan."  He taught me how.

We need heroes—

I knew they were fiction, I knew I wasn't and would never be like them.  But, really, we all need heroes.  We need examples, people to look up to, people who have achieved something greater, people who inspire us to be better than we are.  Isn't that what a hero has always been?

Even in childhood, I had real heroes:  Neal Armstrong didn't have a superpower, but he did something superhuman – he walked on the moon.  I also knew he was just the front man for thousands of engineers, technicians, researchers, tradesmen, craftsmen and wives & children, who dedicated themselves to something that was impossible.  They created the technology (that made possible the technology) that took three men to the moon.  They really did change the world.  The computer on which I compose this post is a direct descendant of the fact that it cost something like $1,100 to put one pound of anything into Earth orbit.  In other words, it had to be smaller or we couldn't get it to the moon.  We couldn't shrink the men or the food, so we had to shrink the tech.  Yes, sports fans, it was the moon program that gave birth to the micro-electronics revolution – and many other consumer products.  But, as another childhood cartoon used to say, "That, Little Adam, is another story."

As I grew older, I gained new heroes:  Kent Nelson Hickenlooper and I met when I was 14, and, at first, didn't like him much.  As I got to know him, we became close friends, and over the decade we knew each other, I grew to respect him as I never had respected anyone.  Kent was born with serious hemophilia, but he, like Hawkeye, lived his life to the fullest.  He never let his genetic flaw define him or control him, despite the fact that every adventure could, literally, have cost him his life.  At age 25, it did.  His body had worn out, but his spirit never soared higher.

As I got into politics, I gained new heroes:  Ronald Wilson Reagan wasn't perfect, but he was so much closer than anybody else who has sat in the Oval Office recently.  He understood how politics worked, and he tried his best to make this country work.  More than that, after the disaster that was Richard Nixon (they were all crooks, he just got caught); after the disappointment that was Gerald Ford; after the national embarrassment that was Jimmy Carter (really, a US president named "Jimmy"?); Reagan was a patriot!  Ronald Reagan loved America, and he gave us permission to love America, and to do it publicly, again.

Heroes of a greater order—

As a lay minister of my church, I am a lifelong student of the scriptures.  I have come to realize, probably a whole lot later than I should have, that the characters I've been reading about my whole life are also my heroes:

Noah and his sons spent about 120 years building the ark.  Alone, probably, because anybody who saw this old man and his sons putting together a ship around 450 feet long and maybe 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall certainly would have called the anti-deluvian equivalent of the Rubber Room squad.  I have trouble following a project for 12 weeks, let alone 12 decades.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego rose from conquered slaves to imperial governors as young men.  They were smart enough to understand political intrigue, and the reality of the threat of death regarding Nebuchadnezzar's golden idol.  Still, when the king said bow, they stood.  Nebuchadnezzar warned them; they stood, declaring, "If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.  But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."  They knew God could save them, they didn't know God would save them – that is the kind of real faith to which I aspire.

Have you ever been hit by a rock?  I have and it hurts, but the size of rocks that most people can throw won't kill you.  It takes a lot of rocks to stone you to death.  Stephen, otherwise unknown to history, stood there and took it because that was the price he had to pay for his faith in Christ.  I'm no doctor,  but I'm guessing it went something like this:  Pain, bruises, small lacerations, a concussion, broken bones (maybe a broken nose), a bruised liver or burst spleen, cracked ribs, internal injuries and bleeding, finally a lucky (for Stephen) shot that brought unconsciousness and coma, followed soon by death.  Not fast; stoning is a hundred small injuries, not one of which is, by itself, fatal.  If they wanted to, they could have made it last for hours.  For Stephen, the answer was, "But if not."  He took it – that, too, is the kind of real faith to which I aspire.

Heroes are all around us—

I could go on forever listing all the great and small heroes from history: Jacob Broom, "a plain good man with some abilities, but nothing to render him conspicuous" who represented Delaware at the Federal Convention.  Mary Fielding Smith, a young widow with small children, who drove her covered wagon west because she could not stay where she was, and built a life for herself and her children in Utah in the 1840s.  My father, Fred Roberts, who had great dreams for his life, and never achieved one of them, but he provided food, shelter, clothing and the other necessities for our family, and a few other things, by working long hours, sometimes 7 days per week, and never taking a vacation when I was a child.  Given his limitations (we all have them) that was a heroic achievement.  I probably should have said that to him once or twice.

I was at a concert recently, which ended with a couple of patriotic songs.  The conductor, as per custom, acknowledged and asked to stand, all the members of the armed forces – those who'd served in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Coast Guard.  Then he asked to stand all those who had served or were serving in the other uniformed and protective services, federal and local – the police and fire departments, forest rangers and highway patrolmen, the FBI, the CIA, the ATF, the ICE, the . . . oh, just pick any three letters of the alphabet . . . all stood to receive a round of applause from the audience.  That was the first time I'd ever seen that, and I was impressed.  Like most people, I had never thought to include all those who "serve and protect."  It reminded me of that great photo from the Bergen Record, the firemen raising that tattered US flag over the ruins of the Twin Towers.

I don't know or care what the mental health community says about heroes, I have heroes and I'll always have heroes.  I hope you have heroes, and I hope you keep finding new people (real or fictitious) to call heroes.  You need them, I need them, we all need them.  We need to be inspired by them!

But, as we consider our heroes; let us not forget all the everyday, ordinary people who do heroic things every day.

In fact, let us be the ordinary people who do heroic things, at least once in a while.

Thanks for listening, tune in next week for another rant.