About Heroes

This post was going to be a rant about Lance Armstrong and how hard it is for parents when someone your child regards as a hero turns out to be a jerk or a cheat (or both). But just as I was working myself up into a proper state of indignation, word came out that Neil Armstrong had died. My indignation fled, to be replaced with a warm feeling of gratitude and admiration, and musing thoughts about what real heroes really are.

Neil Armstrong was a hero. Because he and his fellow moon astronauts made it back from their missions safely, its easy to forget how many things had to work perfectly for that to happen, including Mr Armstrong taking over the controls and manually flying the lunar lander when the computer couldn't find a good spot to set down. And when he set foot on the moon he called attention not to what he had done (one small step for man) but what we had done (one giant leap for mankind).

All this is burned into my memory because on a summer night in 1969 my father woke my siblings and myself up at 1am to watch this happen. It was,he said on of the most important moments in history, and we had the chance to it live, as it was happening. He said we needed to remember it, and as you see I did. I still have a book he bought me with the history of the space program, culminating in the Apollo 11 mission.

I find I have 3 kinds of heroes. One is a creative hero, someone I admire for the quality of work they put out over a lifetime, and for the effects this work has upon others: people like Jim Henson, John Lennon or Joseph Campbell.

Another kind of hero is one I call a character hero, there is a heroic quality is in the way they live their lives. Often they are people who have overcome obstacles (Helen Keller, King George VI) or advocated for peace (the Dali Lama). Sometimes a person can start something on a small scale that winds up changing the world (Eunice Kennedy Shriver). All of them reach beyond their own individual needs to look to the needs of others.

Then there are what I think of as Achievement heroes, someone is who is faster, better or first. Although I can admire such achievements, to think of someone as a hero I want to see what they do with the rest of their lives as well. For example, one of my heroes has always been Sir Edmund Hillary, ever since I read his account of the Conquest of Everest when I was a child. It wasn't only the achievement itself, it was how he wrote about it, right down to not saying whether it was himself, or Tenzing Norgay, his guide, who reached the summit first, because it was their achievement. As I got older I admired him even more for leveraging his fame to advocate for conservation causes and for the people of Nepal.

Armstrong took a different approach to fame--he walked away. Trained as an engineer before he went into the service, and then to NASA (he was an Eagle Scout too, by the way, you Knew I'd slip that in) he went to the University of Cincinnati and taught aerospace engineering. He seldom did interviews or made speeches, but just went about his business, which is what he maintained he was doing on the moon too. His job.

His family has asked that if people wish to remember him, they take a walk on a clear night and look at the moon and think of him. A hero doing his job.


Update 8/31/12
This morning as I was waiting at the bus stop I observed this beautiful Harvest Moon and did think of Neil Armstrong. I suspect it will be awhile before I look at one and not think of him.

Desert Island Reading

As I have previously noted, there are  a lot of books around the house, and I am always looking for more.  And although I do intend to downsize at some point, it certainly wont be to the radical point of this sort of exercise. And yet its a good thing with any possession to stop and think, occasionally, what objects do I treasure the most and just would not do without.

Exercises of this sort are usually proposed upon the lines of: you're moving to a desert island (or going into space on a long term journey) and packing room is limited. Which 5 books do you choose to take with you? More generous versions (such as the one in the Book of Lists) allow for a small group library with an encyclopedia, a Bible or other religious book, and the complete works of Shakespeare. So will I, if only cause it gives me more flexibility. Series books count as one if they are available in a single volume.

After considerable agonizing I whittled the list down:

1) The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. Simply the most important book I have ever read. Why we need myths, what we can learn from them, why diverse cultures throughout history have told the same tales over and over, and so much more is in this book. The interview style makes it more accessible for many people than some of Campbell's work can be, plus its a good one volume summary of most of his writings. For me the book has given my life structure and meaning beyond mundania. The road map of my soul.

2) I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves. Thank goodness there is an omnibus edition of  so I didn't have to use 2 choices up on one writer's work. It was hard enough narrowing down from to these 2 from Graves many works of poetry and fiction. But I can't go to the desert island without my dear friend Claudius, which is exactly how one feels about him when these books are finished. Few works of fiction ever brought a time  period and its people more to life.This is one of the works I read at least once a year. For me one of the signs of a good book is that I leave wanting more, and I never finish these books without wishing Graves had more to say about the Imperial Caesars.

3) The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was rough choosing from my many favorite detective writers, but only with Holmes can I get so much: 56 short stories and 4 novels.  Besides being the basic founding work of the genre, Doyle was a great creator of characters and atmosphere. The chemistry between Holmes and Watson has been bettered only once in detective fiction, by Rex Stout. (I couldn't decide on a single book  by him though.) I read Holmes most years too, and he's great company, though I will miss Wolfe and Goodwin and Queen and Alleyn and Father Brown when I get to that island.

4) The Lord of the Rings J R R Tolkien. Although this is available in a single volume (And Tolkien intended it too be a single book, it was the publishers who broke it up) I haven't found a single volume edition that includes The Hobbit so someone needs to get on the ball. I first read this in high school, and spent a pleasant summer reading it aloud to my little sister, and have returned to Middle Earth many times since. Like Harry Potter this is a work I have shared with my children as well, both the books, and the superb films. For all the times I have read it, I always find new things. Like most great epics its actually better once you know how it ends and can relax and observe the journey.

5) This of course is the hardest choice, a 10 way tie at least. The choice is so hard. My favorite work of the last 10 years is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, but can I really take just one book from a set without the others? Can I take The Killer Angels without the volumes that bookend it? Trying to narrow down to just one book by David McCullough or William Manchester leaves me longing for the others. Finally I decide to take the mammoth coffee table size The Civil War, the companion volume to the Ken Burns series (not without a pang for Baseball) The text is excellent and the photos extraordinary. Like any great history work, it puts the reader in the time and place of the narrative, but it also raises important questions about what we became out of those events.

So what about you? What books would you take. And for all you Kindle/Nook users out there who are about to say that the infinite capacity of your device renders this little debate meaningless, lets present it this way: What if you could only afford to put 5 books on your device? What would you choose and why?