Hero worship

The other day I mentioned that Neil Armstrong is one of my heroes. He truly is, man. Walking on the MOON? That is some kind of cool. In fact, I find almost all things NASA quite fascinating and awe-inspiring, such as.... well, um, these are all Hollywood versions of NASA things, but... the movie Apollo 13. I could watch it a thousand times. (No, not because of Kevin Bacon, but he's a niiiiice bonus. Shut up.) But seriously, that mission, and the actual guys involved? Heroes. And The Right Stuff. And the recent anniversary of the 2 Mars Rovers who've survived about 9 times longer than they were designed to survive, and collected all sorts of valuable Mars information. I mean, we've designed robots that are exploring MARS, people! Is that not AMAZING? The delicacy with which these instruments had to LAND on Mars, alone, is a physics lesson big enough to explode my brain, never mind the fact that after landing, these things then began sniffing around a foreign planet, DISCOVERING things.

So really, any NASA engineer? Hero in my book.

I'm trying to think who are my other heroes. It's like a third-grade history lesson! Names like Sacagawea and Vasco de Gama and Honest Abe start trotting across my mind. No one ever talks about heroes anymore. My husband would say "Wolverine and Spiderman," of course, and my conscience tells me to say things like "Mother Teresa" and "Bono." I'll go all cliche and tell you "my parents," since they are very much heroic in the way they raised me and my sister. I just think they did it perfectly, with the right balance of strict and fair vs. fun and engaging. They didn't push us, we just WANTED to do right for them and make them proud. They treated us like people, not like children. I strive to emulate them more than anyone else.

I think today's American farmers are heroes. It's not an easy life for them and their work is some of the most noble, most honest work there is anymore. Because really, what is creating a website versus Growing Food?? Not comparable. (And I say that because *I* create websites for a living, so don't get offended.)

What about single moms? Yep, heroes. I constantly admire them from a distance -- hey, I actually don't know any single moms in real life. How weird is that? They blow my mind, though.

I guess I don't need a huge long list, but I was thinking about this today and wanted to share. I'll have to keep thinking.

Oh wait, I've got one: Mr. Juan Valdez. Thank God for his work in the coffee fields. And, ooh! ooh!... the person who invented Hamburger Helper. Now you know what we're having for dinner. And.... the Rubberband Man! He's just so happy. I should model my attitude after his! Nowwww we're cookin'...