Where have all the heroes gone?

As a lad I had my heroes, and as time went on, I changed how I picked them.

Golfer Ben Hogan was one of the early ones. He was severely injured in a car wreck. There was a question if he would walk again, and certainly he would never play tour golf again.

About a year later, not only was he playing golf again, but winning.

Joe Louis was another early hero. I listened to many of his fights along with my dad and mom, who tuned in to all his fights.

Along with most boys, I saw Babe Ruth as a hero. He was out of baseball before I was old enough to know much about him. But Babe Ruth stories continued long after he retired and persist today. 

I moved on to military heroes after World War II began and after three of my brothers were in the military and fighting.

General George Patton was my first military hero. He became the guy who got things done when most people said the task couldn’t be done.

My second military hero was General Douglas MacArthur.  I have read several books about both.

It points out that many of our heros have had major flaws, both of character and practices.

My next picks were both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.  FDR was a likely pick for millions of people. I admired him for how he brought the nation back together again after the Great Depression, and how he shaped the country to fight fascism.

I believe Eleanor Roosevelt to be the most outstanding woman of the 20th Century.

My pick of heroes continued to follow another path.

Gandhi was one of my picks just past the middle of the century. His is the story of how one man saved a country from the ravages of colonialism, no matter the personal suffering it caused him.

 A person of similar feats was Nelson Mandela. He suffered a long period in prison but survived to lead a nation to freedom from Dutch colonialism. Their individual stories should top anyone’s list.

I then started to pick heroes from people who cut across the grain.

I had followed the career of anthropologist Margaret Mead.  I was lucky enough to catch one of her lectures while living in the Seattle area.

There was a huge crowd that night, and I will never forget her opening remarks.

She stood at the podium for what seemed a long time, looking out over the crowd.

Then she said something to the effect, if you wonder why there are no black folks here tonight, it is because you haven’t made them feel welcome. 

You could have heard a pin drop.

Another person I admired was Bishop James Pike, who wasn’t afraid to rattle the cages of church authority.

I caught his talk at a church in Kirkland.

His death was one of the strangest of stories. He died while wandering around in the desert in one of the early Bible lands.

Another hero was a person who fought the threat of harm while practicing medicine in Kontum Province in Vietnam. I belonged to an organization that raised funds to help with her hospital there, Dr. Pat Smith. 

Another hero of sorts was the author, Ernest Hemingway. Almost any school student knows of him.

He hung around Sun Valley, Idaho, living there until the mystery of his death. He was a great buddy of the actor Gary Cooper, and the two were frequent fly-fishing friends. 

I was there once when they said he was there, but never saw him. He was a gifted writer and somewhat a careless adventurer.

He took his own life, and I have often visited the memorial to his life along a small stream of water just a few blocks from the main lodge. 

Whenever I visited the area or drove through, I would always drive to the memorial.

I guess we pick heroes because it seems to lift us up.

I don’t know where all the heroes have gone. I just can’t seem to find any in our current age.