How TO Create a Hero!

How Do We Create a Hero-much less a superhero today?
I wanted to be a superhero when I grew up!!! I look down now at the paunch I carry where my once slim stomach was and wonder, what happen to the kid in me that wanted to be a hero when I grew up. My eyes peeled like grapes when I would watch, (cough inserted) the 1950 something episodes of the Superman. I would envision myself saving all kids from having to do homework on the weekends, or from having a bedtime at anytime. My list was endless on how I would make my life and all lives of all kids everywhere better. I wanted swoop down on villains and render them paralyzed, of course when I was daydreaming about being doing in bad guys, my own Mother topped the list in my eyes. But what did I know then, I was a kid and Mom; well she was just being a Mom. I read comic books, Saturday Morning cartoons, Disney, Yeah, even Batman and Robin

All the cartoons I see on television today as per heroes, are animated Japanese art. I can’t grasp a hero of a cartoon from Japan when all I can remember was Godzilla coming at me and stomping me to smithereens, leaving nothing but total destruction in his path.
I know real heroes are not made; they are created, invented and supersized by society. Or are they? There are so many heroes in every walk of life that we never take the time to commend or identify. You know the ones I speak of, the lady at the airport who chases you down because you left your travel ticket on the counter when you made out your baggage claim. Or how about the young man that works in the produce department where you shop, as you clamour passing by, he ask if you need any help finding anything. (You may say to yourself, that is the kid’s job?) Don’t be fooled, you are lucky if you walk into any sort of store these days and a younger person offers to help you. Yes, I know in reading my grumpier manner, you can age identify me. I don’t care, I am older, but I have discovered so much about human nature along these life’s travels. There are so many heroes in life that we never give credence to. That teacher that you have long forgotten about that opened up new doors of your mind over 20 years ago. And you know to this day, that teacher was doing more than a job, that person loved teaching children. Or what about that man that took a chance on you, giving you your first job when you were a teen just starting out in the work place? When I was growing up, we had heroes; we had self made heroes, like Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Mohandas Gandhi, just to name a few. All have gone down in history, for doing their part in making a better life for mankind everywhere. I can look to those people in the past, I can see history the way it was written, the way I lived it, I can see the amazing steps we have made. I can read Maya Angelou works again and again, I see a hero. Her poetry inspires me as a woman. Pick up a few of her works sometime, read for yourself, her book, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” Then there are women like Harriet Tubman, the granddaughter of an African, was born into slavery around 1820 in Dorchester County, Md. As a child, she suffered repeated whippings. At age 12, she tried to help a slave who had attempted an escape. In retaliation, a white overseer beat her with a 2-pound lead weight, causing a serious head injury. For the rest of her life, she suffered from brief blackouts.
At age 25, she married John Tubman, a free African American. Five years later, fearing she would be "sold south," she made her escape. White "conductors" on the Underground Railroad -- a secret network of safe houses -- moved Tubman by horse and wagon, covered from head to toe in a sack, from one home to another, until she safely reached Philadelphia.
It's what she did afterward that is so astonishing. She could have remained in the North, working for the abolitionist movement. Instead, she returned to the South 19 more times, rescuing members of her family, as well as 300 other slaves, for which she earned the nickname, "Moses of her people."


Yet I can step on a turn, look out over the sea of youth today and ask, where have all the heroes gone? Are they in the Nintendos or Wiis that our kids warp their minds with? At least that is in part, how I see it. Heroes are a unique group of people. They are people that stand up to bullies when they are found to be picking on the weaker kids out on the play ground. But I look around and I can’t find any playground heroes anymore. Kids today are better off when it comes to sports, technology, and school work. The world is before them at the touch of a few swipes on a keyboard, walla, instant words gleam before them on the internet. Young people of today, come across as being bolder, more daring, yes, even less intelligent when it comes to standards, manners and morals. They have no fear of anything, but on the other than, they appear to have no need for heroes. I see no level of quality or excellence attained by kids of today. I am not down on a generation of today as a whole, I still hold dear those moments when the young person ask me if I need anything, or even chases me down to return something I mislaid, that is a earnest hero in my book. But they are so far and few between.
I can’t say our boys fighting in Iraq are real heroes, because I have never understood why they were sent there or what faction their action being there has subdued or served. I am not even sure what portions of freedom we are serving to the country of Iraq one moment to the next, so that is a lost cause for heroes, in my opinion.
I know heroes have to exist out here somewhere for the younger and much younger generation coming up, I just am not sure what moral fibre these heroes will consist of. What has gone wrong? Where are the true heroes, the ones we trusted as children? The moral-minded man who stood for his beliefs when all were against him, or the ethical woman who refused to cheat despite the considerable gain it offered her?
And as for moral heroes, well they are just gone. Today's heroes are about talent or good looks, not principles but for the sake of the mighty dollar. Look to your sports for a kid’s hero, there are none, they all have a huge price tag attached and they care very little about the kids that want to look up to them!
So just how do we create a hero, much less a superhero for kids today? Easy by bringing back imagination. Have your kids put down those game boys, turn off the boob tube, enforce a new scope for the outdoors. Go outside, breath in some real outdoor air. Play with your kids, created games that use and spark imagination in your kids. Hell, get the kids on the block to come over and get involved. Try an old game of hind-go-seek. Sit on the green grass on a summer’s evening and tell your kids stories, stories that you make up as you go along. Lay on a blanket with your kids in the backyard, looking up in the stars, take turns pointing to a star, giving that star a name and encourage your kid to tell a story about that same star. Talk to your kids in the evening, tell them what it was like when you were a kid, the things you did for fun, what it was like when you grew up. Get them to talk about what is going on in their life, their feelings, their ups, the downs. And before you know it Mom and Dad, you have helped your kids to create heroes of today, YOU, you become their first hero, the very hero they know they can rely on each step of the way; for life! ! ! ! !