Heroes
Awhile back, I ordered some handmade jewelry for my girlfriend from a very nice couple at Sea of Glass. They asked me a question that caused some pondering:
‘Who is your hero?’
There are a lot of answers. It would seem to divide between real and fictional. I answered:
Forrest Gump. He is not looking for shortcuts, not trying to change the world, just doing his best. He cares about the people around him, accepts the challenges he has without whining. He is realistic about the world. And he does change the world. And the people around him.
But it got me thinking. I won’t do family members because that is too personal for them right now, but they know who they are. I will include mentors, formative people and those fictional people who mean a lot to me.
So, here are some of my other heroes:
Mrs. Gavin – She was a literature teacher, maybe 8th or 9th grade. I guess she could tell I was ready for more because she loaned me a copy of The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. I returned it to her the next day, bleary-eyed. That is what started my adult reading.
Dominic Rivera – He was a math teacher, also around 9th grade. We spent about 20 minutes a day learning what we were supposed to and it was enough. The rest of the time was about whatever we wanted to talk about and his class gambling. He would give us improbable wagers. The stakes were ice cream cones – he wins you deliver them to the faculty lounge, you win and they are delivered in the student’s cafeteria. High stakes for sure. I remember his first wager. He bet that two people in our 30 student class would have the same birthday. Sounds like cake… or easy ice cream. He won and then showed us the simplified math. I still remember – the second person has a 1/365 chance of matching the first, the next 2/365 of matching the first or second, and so on. At 23, it is 50/50. Here is the serious proof: Birthday odds. Unconventional, but he got more people thinking about math than any other teacher I knew. And there were other lessons. He cheerfully paid his debts in public – a good lesson on sportsmanship.
Mr. Moody - I had him for a 12th grade philosophy class. He was a curmudgeon and proud of it. He didn’t care how crass he got if he stirred a mind to think and express itself. I remember him stalking around the class one day, rambling about how a woman’s place was in the home, raising babies and serving the husband. At first I didn’t get it but he was focusing on Karen B., a pretty, smart, very quiet girl who until this time hadn’t said much in his class. Finally, she exploded “MR. MOODY!!!”…. “Yes Karen…?” and he let her go on about the subject for awhile while he smiled. When she was done, he said “Thank you, Karen”. In spite of the gruffness, he really cared.
Mr. Herb Insley – He ran the ham radio club and taught electricity and electronics in high school. Those were considered shop classes but mostly attracted us budding electronic geeks. He definitely fostered our interest in engineering before that was a ‘hot field’ to go into.
John MacDonald – RPI professor and my Master’s advisor. He has possibly (for sure) not the most organized person but in the 70’s he was one of the few professors that I found at the entire school who thought EE’s actually had to make a piece of hardware work. We used the TTL databook and the 6800 processor data sheet as class books.
Peter Baranishyn – I took a kind of crappy job at Lundy Electronics in the mid-80’s while my wife went to medical school. The work was boring – supporting a graphics terminal design we bought from a company in England. So, I tried middle management. Peter was hired as the new Director of Engineering. He taught me what I know about management. Besides being a really fun person, he had great management skills. When he asked people to stay late to finish a rush job, he stayed late, even if it was to empty their ashtrays and get them pizza. We got a new President who was a screamer. He tore into one of the engineers who showed up late (after leaving at 3AM to get a bit of sleep) in the lobby of the building to make a point to everyone about timeliness. Peter went down to the lobby, sent the guy inside and proceeded to loudly defend his engineer and told the new president that if he expected to see new products, leave his engineers alone. I’m sure it was a coin toss as to whether Peter kept his job, but he had our loyalty.
Marita Parisi – She is an artist that I feel very connected with. She had a very evenly running life teaching in Canada and she left it behind to follow her muse. She is a fantastic pencil artist and you can see her work here: Marita'sWeb Site. She does a lot of animals and Native American faces. More than that, she is a kind, wonderful person who listened to me when my marriage was breaking up and has faced many difficulties with a great inner strength. (she is blushing now, but it is true).
Bill Rought - After being hurt in an industrial accident at work, he is confined to a walker or wheelchair. He used to be strictly an outdoorsman. Nothing inside. After the accident, his wife left him with their two teenage sons. Bill took a one-time disability payoff to cover his house and debts – he didn’t want to leave his sons any debts. He still manages OK, started woodcarving, raises his kids. If you ask him “how’s it going?” the honest answer is “can’t complain”. He really means it. You have to know him well or you will never know that he sleeps 2-3 hours at night because of the back pain, has had a dozen back surgeries and sometimes can’t sit up for months at a time. He accepts what he can’t change and enjoys what he has. He is doing better now – much less pain and maybe enjoying life a bit more. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but I think about him often.
Hawkeye Pierce – Sometimes I think Hawkeye was more real to me than many people around me. I loved the risks and investment that made in people. He was the pivotal reason for MASH’s transformation from a comedy to a comedy/drama to a drama/comedy. I think he was the reason why so many of the other characters around him took emotional risks. Klinger and Charles come to mind. Rewatch the final episode if this doesn’t make sense.
Soldiers, police, firefighters - I know, they don’t deserve to be lumped together, but I’m talking about anyone who knowingly risks their life so that I can just motor on with my existence, not worrying daily about all the things they and their families worry about. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
‘Who is your hero?’
There are a lot of answers. It would seem to divide between real and fictional. I answered:
Forrest Gump. He is not looking for shortcuts, not trying to change the world, just doing his best. He cares about the people around him, accepts the challenges he has without whining. He is realistic about the world. And he does change the world. And the people around him.
But it got me thinking. I won’t do family members because that is too personal for them right now, but they know who they are. I will include mentors, formative people and those fictional people who mean a lot to me.
So, here are some of my other heroes:
Mrs. Gavin – She was a literature teacher, maybe 8th or 9th grade. I guess she could tell I was ready for more because she loaned me a copy of The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. I returned it to her the next day, bleary-eyed. That is what started my adult reading.
Dominic Rivera – He was a math teacher, also around 9th grade. We spent about 20 minutes a day learning what we were supposed to and it was enough. The rest of the time was about whatever we wanted to talk about and his class gambling. He would give us improbable wagers. The stakes were ice cream cones – he wins you deliver them to the faculty lounge, you win and they are delivered in the student’s cafeteria. High stakes for sure. I remember his first wager. He bet that two people in our 30 student class would have the same birthday. Sounds like cake… or easy ice cream. He won and then showed us the simplified math. I still remember – the second person has a 1/365 chance of matching the first, the next 2/365 of matching the first or second, and so on. At 23, it is 50/50. Here is the serious proof: Birthday odds. Unconventional, but he got more people thinking about math than any other teacher I knew. And there were other lessons. He cheerfully paid his debts in public – a good lesson on sportsmanship.
Mr. Moody - I had him for a 12th grade philosophy class. He was a curmudgeon and proud of it. He didn’t care how crass he got if he stirred a mind to think and express itself. I remember him stalking around the class one day, rambling about how a woman’s place was in the home, raising babies and serving the husband. At first I didn’t get it but he was focusing on Karen B., a pretty, smart, very quiet girl who until this time hadn’t said much in his class. Finally, she exploded “MR. MOODY!!!”…. “Yes Karen…?” and he let her go on about the subject for awhile while he smiled. When she was done, he said “Thank you, Karen”. In spite of the gruffness, he really cared.
Mr. Herb Insley – He ran the ham radio club and taught electricity and electronics in high school. Those were considered shop classes but mostly attracted us budding electronic geeks. He definitely fostered our interest in engineering before that was a ‘hot field’ to go into.
John MacDonald – RPI professor and my Master’s advisor. He has possibly (for sure) not the most organized person but in the 70’s he was one of the few professors that I found at the entire school who thought EE’s actually had to make a piece of hardware work. We used the TTL databook and the 6800 processor data sheet as class books.
Peter Baranishyn – I took a kind of crappy job at Lundy Electronics in the mid-80’s while my wife went to medical school. The work was boring – supporting a graphics terminal design we bought from a company in England. So, I tried middle management. Peter was hired as the new Director of Engineering. He taught me what I know about management. Besides being a really fun person, he had great management skills. When he asked people to stay late to finish a rush job, he stayed late, even if it was to empty their ashtrays and get them pizza. We got a new President who was a screamer. He tore into one of the engineers who showed up late (after leaving at 3AM to get a bit of sleep) in the lobby of the building to make a point to everyone about timeliness. Peter went down to the lobby, sent the guy inside and proceeded to loudly defend his engineer and told the new president that if he expected to see new products, leave his engineers alone. I’m sure it was a coin toss as to whether Peter kept his job, but he had our loyalty.
Marita Parisi – She is an artist that I feel very connected with. She had a very evenly running life teaching in Canada and she left it behind to follow her muse. She is a fantastic pencil artist and you can see her work here: Marita'sWeb Site. She does a lot of animals and Native American faces. More than that, she is a kind, wonderful person who listened to me when my marriage was breaking up and has faced many difficulties with a great inner strength. (she is blushing now, but it is true).
Bill Rought - After being hurt in an industrial accident at work, he is confined to a walker or wheelchair. He used to be strictly an outdoorsman. Nothing inside. After the accident, his wife left him with their two teenage sons. Bill took a one-time disability payoff to cover his house and debts – he didn’t want to leave his sons any debts. He still manages OK, started woodcarving, raises his kids. If you ask him “how’s it going?” the honest answer is “can’t complain”. He really means it. You have to know him well or you will never know that he sleeps 2-3 hours at night because of the back pain, has had a dozen back surgeries and sometimes can’t sit up for months at a time. He accepts what he can’t change and enjoys what he has. He is doing better now – much less pain and maybe enjoying life a bit more. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but I think about him often.
Hawkeye Pierce – Sometimes I think Hawkeye was more real to me than many people around me. I loved the risks and investment that made in people. He was the pivotal reason for MASH’s transformation from a comedy to a comedy/drama to a drama/comedy. I think he was the reason why so many of the other characters around him took emotional risks. Klinger and Charles come to mind. Rewatch the final episode if this doesn’t make sense.
Soldiers, police, firefighters - I know, they don’t deserve to be lumped together, but I’m talking about anyone who knowingly risks their life so that I can just motor on with my existence, not worrying daily about all the things they and their families worry about. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.