* One Star Heroes *

Whoops, sorry, but you just pegged one of the heroes of my youth. They're heroes, one and all, but I guess I've outgrown their pull on me . . . set my sights on a somewhat different course in life, many years ago. I honor them, however, and they earn you the right to try again - with an easy elimination of four names from the list.

And of course, their onetime influence is still a part of me, so let me tell you briefly who they all were and what part they played in my early life, before you return for another try.

Thomas A. Edison...

may have been my earliest hero. I idolized him, read everything I could get ahold of about him . . . guess I was most impressed by the diversity of his genius. I knew even then that I could never be fulfilled by just one area of interest or activity, and Edison personified an unrestricted, unfenced mindlife. The independence of a free spirit.

 

Richard Halliburton...

meant much the same, with the added touch of physical adventure. If you aren't familiar with him, he was a swash-buckling traveler and writer, with such books as The Royal Road to Romance chronicling his exploits during the 1920s and '30s. He was lost at sea during one such adventure in 1939. I wanted first to be an inventor, and next to be a global adventurer.

 

Gregory 'Pappy' Boyington...

was a wartime hero of mine, personifying all the blood and guts heroics of warfare - especially in a flying mode, which was my chief fascination in those days. I had other such heroes, too, in those years of war, but Greg holds a special place, for he was my first "black sheep" hero - in fact, it was the Black Sheep Squadron of Marine flyers that he led, after earning his battle wings with the soldier-of-fortune Flying Tigers in China, before our own hostilities broke out. Warfare no longer turns me on, but black sheep figure prominently among my top pantheon of heroes. (And that's a clue for you!)

 

Percy Harrison Fawcett...

didn't likely lead you to this page. I doubt if one in a thousand, today, has ever heard of him. He was a South American explorer (British) who vanished without a trace in the Amazon basin, in 1925. It was the combination of mystery and South American adventure in terra incognita that gave him hero status in my young eyes - I wanted to go there someday and discover what had become of him.