Heroes

The summer I turned nine years old my family spent the summer on a trip across America. I look back now and wondered at the insanity my parents entertained taking two girls, seven and nine, on a 2 month long trip across country. My sister and I got to see much of America from the windows of the car. It was a huge adventure for us. We saw our first black man in Dallas. He was a very nice man who bought us a root beer while we waited for a tire to be replaced. My sister fell in immediate love with him. Root Beer has always had that effect on her.

I have many fond memories of that summer and have a million tales to tell, but the one thing that stands out is receiving my very first comic book. I'm a great reader. I love to read. My father translated this into the only terms he could and bought me comic books at a truck stop to stop my whining in the car. He opened me up to a world of Wonder Woman, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers and Spiderman. I demanded new comic books every time we stopped. At that point I thought they had new books at every store and didn't really get the monthly installment thing at all. All I cared about was that I had found heroes and I wanted more.

When I was a child my heroes were Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Now I had pictures of Spiderman, Superman, and Captain America. As I grew up my heroes changed, but I never quite forgot my love of comic book heroes. My heroes these days are captains of industry and proponents of freedom of expression (true freedom, not the monkey see, monkey do expression of the looter and second hander). Back in the 90's one of my biggest heroes was Steve Forbes. He still is. I don't hate bill Gates because he's so rich, no, I glory in that. I hate him because he allowed Windoze to become the biggest piece of bloatware in the OS market. He caved, he gave in and started listening to people who were ashamed that they had ability and created things.

Today my heroes haven't really changed. I still admire and respect Steve Forbes. I look forward to seeing him on Neil Cavuto's show on Saturday. I listen to him because he is unapologetic for being successful. My heroes today are the men an women who create and produce and do not apologize or feel bad because they can. I despise idiots who feel guilty for making money. I admire the hell out of Andrew Breitbart for giving many people who are sick of the government taxing us to death for their social engineering a voice and medium in which to speak that voice. I love the minorities who are letting go of the hand that has held them down and speaking out against it. These are the heroes of today. The folks who show up at Tea Party rallies and quietly endure the jibes and jeers of the leftist protesters who want nothing more than blood spilled for their idiocy.

I think about these heroes today as my husband and son go nuts over the new Ironman movie coming out. I was never a Tony Stark Fan and thought Ironman was lame. But, I like Robert Downey, Jr. and I'm willing to indulge my husband's man-crush on him. Captain America is going to be made into a movie. Thor is being made into a movie (please, God, please please please let Alexander Skaarsgard get the role) and they are making an Avengers movie so I hear. These people are my heroes. These are the ideals I look up to.

John Galt and Howard Roark remain my literary heroes. Gone are Tom and Huck, rafting down the Big River. I have grown, but my need for heroes, for people to look up to, has not. We all have that need. We need to have people to aspire to be or be like. We need to know that, against all the odds for people of ability these days, we can climb to the top, be successful, and enjoy the spoils of our success. I chose heroic people, not murderers and thieves. how anyone can look at Castro or Che as heroic is beyond me. Besides, they both look silly with a cape.