i've been thinking about heros lately. we have this notion in the US that there are no more heros. that at some point children had people to look up to and emulate, and now they have no one. i can't help to think that this has more to do with the media microscope than anything else. no one can remain pure when held up to a light like that. i do have personal heros, though. none are public figures, so none have endured media scrutiny. not that this matters, they are heroic for specific things they have done, not specific things that have not avoided doing. skeletons can stay in closets, for all care. My personal heros have all acted in ways that I hope I would act in similar situations. Situations that I have yet to face. Situations that I may never need to face. All have made personal sacrifices in order to better the lives of children. Recently I've come to a realization that the security of children in society is probably one of my greatest passions. By security I mean elevating all aspects of a child's growth towards maturity. Strong family, strong education. Protection. The ability to remain a child for as long as necessary so that the adult is equipped for a society fowarding life. My parents are my first heros. My father has worked hard all of my life to make sure his children are taken care of. His commute was three hours a day for 25 years. His job was dreary. If I picture myself in a similar situation I imagine I would come home, down a six pack in front of the tv to take the edge off the day and then pass out. instead, my dad would come home and play with the kids. he showed me how to draw and paint on the backs of printouts he'd save from work. He always took time for us. my mom didn't start working until we were in high school. she stayed home and took care of us. she was very active in our education. the volunteered in our classes in elementry school. she got her BA while we were in elementry. I have no idea when she worked on it. Nights after my dad came home, while we were at school. She is the only person I know personally who graduated college with a 4.0. My second set of heros are my brother and his wife. my brother is younger than I am, and, at a time in which I was running from responsibilty and blasting my brain with any chemical i could get a hold of, became a father. My sister-in-law turned 21 while she was pregnant. regardless of their age, or where i was when i was that age, they have become an excellent pair of parents. my neice is the most remarkable child i have ever met. I am so proud of what my brother has made of himself. I worry that there is no way I could be as good a father as he. Though I hope I will be. My last set of heros are Pilate and, presumably, Pilate's Trace. We all know that story. I hope that I would have the strength in character and conviction to do the same if I faced the same situation. so... who are your heros?

jesus man....i was gonna say super man and aquaman simply because they conquered air and water....but shit.....after that nate.....i need to rethink

I wish I could say my parents, but I can't because they weren't really around much. Sometimes I tell acquaintances how much I admire my parents, because I like the way that sounds. But it's not 100% true. I swear it will be different with my kids and they won't ever wonder if they are loved. There have been people in my life to replace my parents. A ballet teacher who wanted me to live the life she could never have. A high school English teacher who took me home one holiday and let me read all her books and told me nice things about how brilliant I was and made me see a life beyond ballet. Then there was the stupendous Peggy. She was an old woman already when we met, about 87. I often wonder if she had to wait around to meet me before she was allowed to leave. Anyway, Peggy was an early campaigner for women's rights and had done so many amazing things with her life. She'd served as a code-breaker during WW2 and danced on tables in the Ritz and trekked in the Himalayas and flown planes and God knows what else. And she did it all with such dash. When I found out she had throat cancer, I went to see her with the tear stains still on my face. She didn't say anything, because we didn't need to. She sent me out to get her a bottle or two of Moet et Chandon and stipulated that it should be vintage. She said, "I've always known how to enjoy myself and I don't expect death to be any different". We drank that bloody champagne and I got my first taste of real courage. God I admired Peggy's individuality and her spirit and that limitless class and style. I miss her. When I grow up, I want to have even just an ounce of peggability.

my father.... its like this. when i was roughly a year old, my father went crazy, he was diagnosed as a parnoid schizophrenic. my parents divorced a couple of years later. HOWEVER, growing up...he would pick us every other weekend, my brother and I. He was living on social security disability, he tried to work odd jobs, telemarketing and such. But it usually was a disaster. He had little money, his social security covered only minimal treatment...say 1/4 of the year, the rest of the year he was somewhat on his own. he had Souther baptist guilt ridding parents who tried to get hi into the church, which was also an utter failure and compounded his problems. BUT despite all of this.....he was ALWAYS there for myself and my brother. He would tkae us to movies, take us to resturants and in general catered to our childhood whims. I went through the "i want a dirt bike" phase. He would take me to the Honda store every sat and hang around while i hopped from bike to bike and dreamed. I would buy the Cycle Trader, and at one point i found a bike for about $500. he had roughly $800 in the bank for the rest of month. He was ready to spend 2/3 of his money to get me the bike, my mom objected, i never got said bike. When Atari came out, he took us immediately to get an Atari...he would buy us the Jello pudding pops, the fruit roll ups, all the popular kids shit that was hip (and expensive)...in short...he would spend his last dime seeing us smile. He took us to air shows, circuses and parks and even camping. If he had a nickle in his pocket, he'd give it to me if i asked. Now some might say he was spoiling us, and well perhaps, but he was the counter balance to my mothers, stern, powdered milk, food stamp ways. He was never afraid to let us see him cry when he was having a tough time, and he ALWAYS kissed me when we said goodbye for the weekend. I remember that whiskered, smoke breath kiss on the cheek like it was yesterday. He was the most sensitive, sweetest man I have ever met. I truly regret he killed himself before my wife could ever meet him. She has often flattered me with such words, and i wish I could show her where I got it from. He is my hero because despite his mental problems.....he always managed to show us a good time, to be best father he could be. He would be in shambles the week through, suicide attempts...sitting for hours on end at the kitchen table listening to the radio smoking cigs and literally wearing a hole in the kitchen linoleum with his twitchy foot from his medication. He never let us down. He persevered. he finally gave in on life 2 weeks after I called him, from atlanta (he had ran away to LA to get better treatment) when i had moved in with nico and was about to propose. When i spoke of how happy i was, the good job I had and that i was doing great on my own...he finally decided to give in. Im convinced he was secure he had done everything he could under the circumstances to raise a child, and when he learned i was good to go, he gave in. for this he is my hero the only other personal heros I have would be my grandparents for filling where my mom and dad lacked...and showing me the utmost love a child in my situation could have....and my great aunt june who was a pilot during world war 2. She never faught in combat, that wasnt her job, her job was to fly craft into the pertinent theaters for the combat pilots to use. the fact she was even permited to do such a thing at that time in our history is landmark. she is one of the strongest, most outgoing and life giving women I know. she never took no for an answer and is braver than most people i know. the end

Wow, I know that compared to most sorabjites I'm young, and I haven't had much of life so to speak. You all have had rich lives, filled with both joys and sorrows. I have had a pretty mediocre life, with nothing to specatcular to report. And yet with knowing so many people whom to choose a hero from I would choose my mother. She got pregnant with the first of 3 children (myself) when she was 26. She worked at the local hospital at the time doing bookwork in the pulminary department where my father also worked. They had only been married for one year almost to the day before she had me. She worked almost all of her life at that company, and in the end just got screwed by them, and the lady she went to work for afterwards. During a plane trip back from london, the plane had major problems, and was forced to land. A lot of horrible shit happened while she was on that plane, and it gave her a mental breakdown. She would sit for days and do nothing, and then somedays she would have this OCD problem with cleaning everything, straightening pictures that were already straight. It took her pretty low. She still has some problems, but aside from not having a job for 6 months because of her break down she is now starting her own business, buy putting her mental instabilities to work by cleaning other peoples houses. The day I graduated highschool she told me that of all the things she wanted in life none had come true but one, and that was, she was able to see me graduate from highschool and become and adult. She has gone through a lot of shit in her life, when she had my littlest sister (3-3) she got ovarian cancer and they had to remove her overies, the surgery almost killed her. My mom has always been there for me, she's always been a shoulder to cry on, and someone to confide in. Recently she lost her grandmother, and that put her in shambles, she is still slowly recovering from that shock. The only other hero I could say I have is my friend Van, his father left him and his mom when he was little. Throughout his childhood his mother was very sick, always going to the docter for one reason or another, but she never told him what was wrong. It wasn't till he was 18 and a senior in highschool did he find out she had terminal cancer and only had about a month to live. He was still 3 months from graduating highschool, she held out till he graduated and died three days later. When she died he was holding her, and the last thing she said to him was "I love you." That year he moved from Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina with my other buddy Adam, 2500 miles to Billings, Montana. He's an extreamly level headed person, and he knows what he wants in life. He takes everything in stride, and never gives up at anything. When my mom met him, she told him that she was adopting him (metaphorically speaking of course) and she's treated him like family since. I consider him a brother myself, he and I are close. I consider him my hero because of the way he took his mothers death, and the way he takes life in stride.

I have too many to even start describing why they are heroes. Unless anyone is just absolutly serious about wanting to know. An abbreviated list: Mom & Dad My friend Aaron B. My friend Mavis My friend bernie Emperor Norton the First Ivan Stang Wendy and Richard Pini Iron Maiden (laugh and I'll stab you multiple times, then have dogs fuck the wounds, cos I mean it, their music really helped me deal with the misery of high school) and the list of minor heroes is just enormous.

lol @ Iron Maiden. (Sorry Sem, but that was the best offer I've had all day)

Don't say I didn't warn you. Did I mention they were unwashed Saint Bernards?

. o O This is getting better by the moment. I think I might put some lipstick on. I do want to have them panting.

They'd be panting if you put some lard on. Use lots of it...

Are you speaking from personal experience Pantiephone?

my mom my best friend Paula Alice Walker Aretha Franklin

My great grandma Sarah. She survived pogroms in Beylorussia as a young girl, sailed alone to the US, to meet some relative in Yonkers, NY at the age of fourteen. She met my great grandfather at sixteen, and they married after high school. Gramma Sarah helped raise my mom during WWII, when my Grandpa went off to serve in the army medical corps. He joined up right after Pearl Harbor, a month after my mom was born, and served until 1946, and was overseas for the latter part of the war. She had already had at least one stroke by the time I knew her, and no longer drove. She had another that I remember when I was still fairly young, and her final stroke was after my bar mitzvah. I've always felt blessed that she lived long enough to see her oldest great grandchild bar mitzvahed, and one of the great moments for me was the night before, when she, my grandmother, my mother and my sister said the blessing over the candles together. Her funeral, when I was around fourteen, was the model for me of how a funeral should be. We buried her next to her first husband, with much sadness, but by the time we got back to my great aunt's house, the stories started coming out, and everyone was laughing and crying together. I've vowed for years that my first daughter will be named for Grandma Sarah.

YOUR JEWISH?!?!?!? Cool, sorry I'm in one of those moods, it isn't often I get see my mom really enjoy herself. Boy oh boy did she enjoy herself tonight. I got invited to this party by a friend I know really well and have for a few years, so I show up at the party and its for both him and his mom (birthdays like 2 days apart) and I introduce myself to his mom and she's like "OH, I know you, your mom is upstairs and she's pretty plowed." Now the first shock was when the women hugged me and said "Oh I know you..." because I've never met the woman in my life. The second shock was, "what in gods name is my mom doing at a party at a friend of mine's house, plowed even?" It turns out her and the mom have been friends since I was a little kid. It was her 50th birthday and to be honest, she was hot. I won't normally say that about a friends mom, but the woman looked like she was 27 or 28. She's got it good.

my grandfather was cool as a cucumber. my grandparents owned a drug store before i was born. tons of kids went there every day for lunch from school. one day my grandpa saw this kid [who was i guess some regular pain in the butt] put an ice cream in his pocket and start to walk out. instead of yelling, my grandfather put his hand on the kid's shoulder and started chatting. asked him how his parents were, his brother...etc. before long the ice cream was melting down the kid's leg. he didn't do it again. my grandpa had this basement full of crazy tools and junk. we used to spend days cutting and glueing and nailing stuff together. in contrast to my super-freak raging father, my laid-back grandfather was my favorite person in tha world. i would sometimes cry thinking about if something might happen to him. cool as a cucumber. at 4 in the morning that cracks me up.

my parents (i complain about them a lot, but it's improving, i think they resent me less since i don't sleep 'til noon anymore) my boyfriend (he's been baaad in the past, but he's turning his life around) my great-grandma hilda (she came to america when she was mostly deaf, but managed to learn some english and divorced her abusive husband in the early 1900's...i wish i knew her) francesca lia block (her books make me dream) and.... i think the beastie boys would qualify as my heroes, somewhat...their song "bodhiattsva vow" makes me think of spirituality and alternate ways of life.

My Father, because he stayed in a marriage for twenty years in which he apparently felt very alienated, for the sake of me and my sister. At the same time I think that was a stupid thing to do, but when are these things ever simple, eh? My Mother, for handling my father, and taking the divorce very well and bouncing back with an energy and life that I've never seen in her before. My Sister, because she's so talented and has gone so far in her career so fast, and will go much farther, I'm sure. My Grandfather and Grandmother on my dad's side, who, after retirement, volunteered for 25 years with Contact (counseling people considerinbg suicide, and having other crises) and founded a prisoner's aid society in Tennessee. They've personally befriended and visited dozens of prisoners, and maintained some of those friendships for thirty years. And finally my Grandmother on my mom's side, who we suspect had an abortion in 1920, and had terrible trouble bearing children after that. (My mom wasn't born until my grandmother was 40, after three miscarriages...) And she made potatos for my grandfather every day for 45 years. She HATED potatos! :-)

i've got to admit that i don't find my family particularly heroic in any way. they're too predictable. they tend to spawn large litters of children as early as possible & then spend the rest of their lives bitching about how the kids fucked them up. they also abuse the kids in the name of religion. how heroic. right. however, my step-great grandmother was pretty cool & i admired her quite a bit. she was very strange & wonderful. she lived on froot loops cereal, shot off fireworks every day, & worked splitting logs despite her geriatric status. lived to be nearly 100. she was a devout pentecostal & taught me church hymns, many of which i have kept alive in the old tradition. she also had a weird habit of keeping pictures of dead people all over the walls. a trailer full of pictures of corpses. she was one of a kind. i had an eccentric great-aunt who everybody tried to avoid but me. i thought she was great. everybody else thought she had bats in the belfry. other children in the family abused her. i enjoyed her company. i liked the relatives that everybody else hated. as far as personal heroes, i can pretty much get behind anybody who ever dared to get off their ass & live. people who didn't follow the herd. as a kid, i dug the usual kid standbys of jack kerouac, william blake & other subcultural oddballs who did whatever the hell they pleased instead of selling their souls down the line by age 18. pug & pilate are heroic. neither of them ever truly caved in or conformed. they didn't knuckle under. they're rugged individualists & society be damned. i think that's great. they didn't do the obvious bullshit w/ their lives. my husband is a hero for putting up w/ me on a daily basis. lunatics, rock stars, writers, bohemians, freaks, street crazies, artists & just plain old ordinary people are my heroes. people who didn't do the expected thing. people w/ the nerve to make their own way & blaze their own path.

my grandfather. when my brother and i were little we used crayons to color the backseat of his new car. he never sold the car. even when it barely even worked because there was a part of us in it.

My grandfather. He built an entire town by his own bare hands, starting out with money earned from work. He owes no one, and everyone owes him. Rent that is. Now he is dying of cancer, and has not told anyone about it. He tries to appear as strong as ever, even though we can all read it in grandma, and we see him wasteing away to nothing.

Amanda, that's too damn sweet for words.

I just need life beyond Thunderdome.

Two men enter... One man leaves... Two men enter... One man leaves... Two men enter... One man leaves... Two men enter... One man leaves... Two men enter... One man leaves...

My dad. I've already told you about him. He had one cold, hard, childhood and yet grew up to be the most decent person I will probably ever know. My mother has decided to leave him, and that should reflect on her and her poor judgment, not him. He cried in the car today, asking me if he had been a good father. He never did normal father-things with us, like reading to us or taking us to the zoo, but he did everything in his power to allow us to have a stable family and home, with all the comforts he never had. If he and I were starving, he'd give me his last piece of bread without a second thought. He's a great father. My mother's friend Rose, who's now 86 and dying in an old folks' home in New York. Rose is like my adopted grandmother (my dad's parents were dead before I was born, and my mother's mother was crazy). One fierce woman. She may or may not have killed her husband, who abused her. She grew up in West Virginia mining country and was completely self-educated. Told dirty jokes when we had good company over, just because she could. On my birthday, she always wrote me clever little poems about the two of us being twins (we're both Geminis) and needing to stick together. I don't think she recognizes me anymore, unfortunately. My aunt Beth. Besides my father, she's the only family member I have who loves unconditionally. She helped me a lot when I was messed up. Taught me about self-esteem and responsibility and courage and open-heartedness. Father Mario. He was a priest in Rome during WWII and hid many people from the Nazis, and he is now a family friend. He was a boxer in his youth, and he can have a terrible temper, but he's also extraordinarily wise and patient and gentle. He has this other-worldly ability to say just the right thing that will comfort the parts of you that you've never admitted were hurting. Once, I was dragged to a mass at which he was officiating...I was in a terrible temper and didn't want to be there at all. During the mass, I had a strange experience and was very shaken. After mass, *he* came up to *me* (and this is remarkable because so many people always go to see him after mass) and told me that God loves me. I've always wondered why he did that. Fugazi. Just because they're so freakin' honest. Ulysses S. Grant was a very good man, too. Really. Y'all should read about his life some time.

Ulysses S. Grant is an ancestor of mine on my father's mother's side of the family...

I thought it was his horse you were related to?

Him and his horse. Unfortunately some of the horse genes have been diluted over the generations... But I still get uncontrollable urges for oats, now and again.

my name is in both fortunate and unfortunate. i am so fucking tao. all i have in my wallet is 1000 yen. i just ate a BBQ beef burrito from Johnnies. my next 7up will have a splash of knob creek in it. the room smells of nag. i moved a 55 gallon fish tank 15 feet today. that's 3 2/3 gallons per feet, though i emptied it before i moved it. when i sit at my dinner table i can touch the homes of numerous animals. both birds. two fishtanks. plus my belly, which serves as a temporary home for some animal or another. nightly.

...and billions of bacteria, all happily metabolizing away...

My Mom was probably the only reason I came out alive and sane....and she fought the odds in a family where peoples' attitudes were "all that boy needs is some discipline" when I was suffering some serious neurological problems...she fought self-doubt and a whole slew of things that were stacked against her...and she did what was right for her kids. Past that I don't give a rat's ass about parental figures.... A lot of my heroes day to day are people I've met....Crimson is my hero because she's gotten through so much in her life and come out the most brilliant person I've ever met in my life. Pilate is my hero 'cause he's taken more shit on the chin than I ever could. Crimson's old man is my hero for approximately the same reason. Past that, anyone who ever took shit for saying and doing the things they wanted to...Henry Miller, Wm. Burroughs, Jonathan Swift, Lenny Bruce, etc., etc., etc....

My son is my hero. There are a thousand reasons he should've turned out badly, but he didn't. He's a beautiful person and he amazes me every day. My fiance is my hero too. He's very cool and steady, always managing to stay level-headed even when things are going to hell around him. There are days when he's the only thing keeping me sane. He's gentle when he needs to be. Disarmingly gentle. But he's astonishingly strong when the going gets rough. His stability is admirable. He's a wonderful man and I love him dearly. My father is my hero, but I didn't recognize it until it was almost too late. He was largely an absentee father. I wasn't happy with him for leaving me with my cold, abusive mother. But when the shit really hit the fan during my teens, he came back and helped me out. We reconciled our differences and he taught me a lot about life. Unfortunately he died soon after we got back together. Pug and Crimson are my heroes. I know they've also mentioned me as a hero (bless their little pointed heads) and this is all probably starting to sound like some kind of insane circlejerk. But it's true. They ARE my heroes. The two of them are so full of life and so creative in all the ways I wish I could be. Crimson's husband, Ren, is an amazing person and a truly great writer. Also, I have a friend named Aggie who's very heroic. She doesn't give a damn about what anyone thinks of her. She does her own thing and does it so well that all I can do is stand back and watch her in total awe. Anybody who ever defiantly stood up for their rights in the face of oppression is a hero to me. Oh, yeah, and there's Julius Caesar, always a heroic kinda guy. And bisexual, too. How nice.

italiaNate procrastiNate obstiNate ?