Who are YOUR heroes?
I’ve been reading a few biographies recently and have come to realize that several of the subjects are heroes of mine. I never really classified them as “heroes” until I started reading more about them. I’m working on a post about who those heroes are (and why they’re my heroes). But that post isn’t ready yet. So while I’m working on it, I have a question for you:
Who are your heroes? Who inspires you?
For a variety of reasons, I’d like to limit this to the realm of those who are no longer with us. I’m pretty sure I’ve asked this before, but I know it’s been a while so it’s worth asking again.
I’m looking forward to knowing who inspires you.
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Howdy. I'm Matt. My wife, Christy, and I have four kids and two dogs, I'm passionate about orphan care. I'm a die-hard fan of the Evansville Aces, the Indiana Hoosiers, and Star Wars. I'm trying to live life by the Todd family motto: "It behooves us to live!"
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Hello Matt! I’ll double-down on your question by providing “heroes” from both my youth and adulthood.
As a young child, I was reared in the country, not on a farm, but among farmland and good sized stretches of woods. Arrowheads were still commonly found in fields and along streams and the nearest paved road, Boundary Road, ran along the 1795 Greenville Treaty Line less than a mile to the west of my home. A log cabin built in 1805 still stood about 200 yards to the north and a few relics of a stockade built in 1813 as protection from potential Miami and Shawnee Indiana attacks during the War of 1812 could be seen nearby. The history was well known to me even then and it’s no surprise that I enjoyed Fess Parker’s staring in the Daniel Boone series.
Boone is known to have hunted and explored a bit east of where I grew up, no doubt mingling with Native Americans who traveled and hunted on the same land were I spent a great deal of my time as a youth. He remains a hero whose life still inspires me for his simple sense of adventure, certainly his courage and his balance of personal ambition with a sense of social duty. I remain particularly interested in explorers, including one whose story I learned about after I became an adult.
In my late 20s, I watched a moderately decent movie, “Mountains of the Moon,” about the relationship of English explorers John Hanning Speke and Richard F. Burton, both associated with explorations in the late 1850s to discover the source of the Nile River. Burton, who during his life learned nearly 30 languages and is credited with translating into English “The Arabian Nights” and “The Kama Sutra” as well as publishing many articles and books on what would be today called ethnological studies, including one of the Mormon’s whom he visited in Salt Lake City.
His intellect thirst for adventure inspire me, though he had many flaws that I’d not care to emulate. Still, he illustrated how accomplishments are often made by persons not easily categorized or even likable in many respects.
Thanks for sharing, Mark!