Who was your childhood hero? Page 1

The Burning writer

Tim Madigan

JJMWho was your hero when you were a child?

TM I have never been asked that question. It would have been a sports figure, probably someone who played for the Minnesota Twins during the Killebrew, Oliva and Carew era. Probably Harmon Killebrew. I was pretty much a sports fanatic, and still am. I wanted to be a big league baseball player. I always was a fairly avid reader as a kid, too, and my favorite books were the Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Conan Doyle.

HR Pippi Longstocking. I’m quite serious. Ok, she’s a fictional character, but the effect she had on me was real. The Pippi books make exhilarating reading for young girls. You know that whatever happens to her, Pippi will always come out on top.

Pippi is 9 and lives with her monkey and horse in an old house with an overgrown garden. Her mother died. Her father’s a sea captain, who comes back every so often and gives her another trunk full of gold coins. Pippi is carrot-haired and freckle-nosed; she wears one brown stocking and one black stocking and huge men’s shoes. (She likes to be able to wriggle her toes.) She’s so strong she can lift her horse, so you can imagine how she deals with interfering police officers, or boys who bully people. She goes to school one day, but she finds all that “pluttifikation” stuff quite absurd, and never goes back. Congenitally incapable of submitting to authority, she’s funloving, warm, heroically generous, and brave.

I’ve given Pippi books to dozens of little girls. I don’t really know what the impact of those books were on me, of course, but I’ve always admired people who do not conform to the more absurd social pressures, people who are not bowed by overreaching institutional authority, people who speak out for what they believe, people who stand up to bullies.

Richard Wright biographer

Hazel Rowley

Bill Evans biographer

Keith Shadwick

KS  Not sure what “boyhood” entails. The first jazz record that really excited me was an EP of the Benny Goodman Quartet ‘live’ from the 1930s – my father bought that for me when I was about 8 years old and I loved their frantic workouts on ‘I Got Rhythm’ and ‘I’m A Ding Dong Daddy’. In my early teens I discovered John Coltrane. As for many others, it was a life-changing moment.

DA  One of my first heroes was Leopold Stokowski, the conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1937, when I was six years old, I was taken to hear them, and I fell in love with that whole group of musicians and all the music I heard, including the performance of Peter and the Wolf. A few years later, my Uncle David took me to the Earle Theatre to hear Duke Ellington. I learned from my uncle that jazz, like symphony music, was built to last. So, I was introduced to the idea of making music by these two men, who were among my early heroes. I also admired the first oboist in the Philadelphia Orchestra, Marcel Tabiteau. In 1976, I wrote a piece in his memory for the Philadelphia Orchestra, Trail of Beauty, based on American Indian music. I just wrote a new piece for the flutist James Galway, Giants of the Night Flute Concerto, which was written in memory of Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac and Dizzy Gillespie. What I have tried to do during the course of my lifetime is honor many of the people who influenced and inspired me, and in the process of honoring them it will hopefully create interest in their work, as well as being a thank you letter from me.

Composer

David Amram

Ralph Ellison biographer

Lawrence Jackson

LJ  My own father, Nathaniel Jackson, Jr, who passed away twelve years ago. I also have a cousin who was best man at my wedding, a public school teacher named Charles Dugger. Charlie has run for mayor of Baltimore about three times, and is a left wing, black nationalist presence in the political forums and debates. He raises issues that normally wouldn’t appear. I always admired these men very much. As a young guy, I was also very much taken with military figures.

Fire in a Canebrake author Laura Wexler

LW  Probably Laura Ingalls Wilder. I read all the Little House on the Prairie books, and loved that she was an adventurous young girl, striking out for the territory with her family. The pioneering of it interested me.

JJM  What books did you read as a young woman that sparked your interest in writing Fire in the Canebrake?

LW  Probably the works of Toni Morrison, which I read during college. I don’t remember reading any books about race in high school, but once I got to college I had this sort of cliched awakening. I read Richard Wright’s Native Son — which really knocked me for a loop — and then I read Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and everything by Toni Morrison. All of those books affected me in numerous ways.

CA  I don’t think I ever had one. I grew up in Iceland and Denmark, so I wasn’t exactly surrounded by the media. There was nothing really there to create a childhood hero for me. I think the closest person answering to the definition of a hero would be my maternal grandfather.

Bessie Smith biographer Chris Albertson

They Marched Into Sunlight author David Maraniss

DM   I loved baseball when I was a little kid, and my hero during that time was Roberto Clemente. Even though I grew up in Wisconsin and loved the Milwaukee Braves, there was something about Clemente that seemed so beautiful and graceful.

BLP  That is easy to answer — Elmore James. I thought he was a really great musician. When I was a child, I never really wanted to be an athlete or a fireman, because it was music that interested me, and Elmore James was the musician I most admired.

JJM  Are you a musician?

BLP  Yes, I have been a musician. I was in a group in Ann Arbor, Michigan during the sixties called “The Fabulous Driving Wheel Blues and Soul Show Revue.” I recently toured with John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, a Piedmont blues duet, playing as the Bowling Green Blues Trio — essentially working for the State Department. So, I play the blues, which is one of the reasons why I got into this project. My experiences with it shaped the way I look at things.

Robert Johnson: Lost and Found author Barry Lee Pearson

Tim Brooks, author of Lost Sounds:  Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890 – 1919

TB I was always fascinated with music and television. In music, I would have to say that Elvis was a childhood hero of mine. When I was growing up, he was just becoming popular, and was the voice of my generation. Fortunately, I didn’t adopt all of his lifestyle choices, or I wouldn’t be here today. As for a hero in broadcasting, early on in my life I liked James Garner. I liked actors and people who had an off beat sense of humor about them.

TW  As a child, I went through several stages where heroes were important to me. The earliest hero I had was the Lone Ranger. He came on the radio every night at 7:30, and my brother and I would lie in bed and listen to the show. I loved the idea that his unknown identity helped him right the wrong and help the weak, and then at the end he would ride off into the dust without letting anyone thank him. It was great.

During the 1953 World Series, I wanted to be like Jackie Robinson. I still remember how he danced off third base, and how he then stole home. I was about six years old at the time, and I would tell people I was Jackie Robinson.

JJM  What was their reaction to that?

TW  They would sort of laugh and look at me — this little blonde, freckled, blue-eyed kid. The world has changed a lot since then. White kids today can say their hero is Michael Jordan without anyone batting an eyelash. It would have been rare in our day for white kids to have a black hero, but today kids have the ability to identify with whomever.

When I was a teenager, my father was my hero, and I wanted to be like him. He taught me that giving back to others and helping those in need is what is important in life. That was his identity. He used to laugh at the idea that people would work solely for the purpose of making money. Who would want to spend eight to twelve hours of their day for that reason? He felt it was more important to be doing something to make the world better, to have fun while doing it, and you will consequently feel good about yourself. He would always say that he was not a minister for some ‘do-gooding’ purpose, but because he enjoyed it, he found it fulfilling and made his life more significant. After having spent all my life working with so-called “troubled” teenagers, I find myself saying that as well.

Later on in my high school and early college years, I went through a period where I rejected the idea of working with individuals — if you did that you would never change the system. So, John Kennedy became my hero for a while during that time. Heroes change as you change. I don’t really like the idea of heroes now. We all need role models, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be anyone’s hero. To be someone’s hero is a pretty heavy burden that I am not sure any of us can carry. We all have feet of clay.

Thomas Webber, author of Flying over 96th Street: Memoir of an East Harlem White Boy

Fletcher Henderson biographer Jeffrey Magee

JM  I grew up near Pittsburgh in the seventies, which was a great decade for Pittsburgh sports. The Pirates won two World Series and the Steelers won four Super Bowls during this time. I was in the heart of my childhood, and in my prime of being a sports fan as well, so it was a magical time for me. Every time I hear the names of the great players of those teams — Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann, “Mean” Joe Greene, Jack Ham, Jack Lambert, not to mention guys who aren’t remembered as well any more like, say, Richie Hebner and Rocky Bleier — it conjures up a whole range of feelings and memories.

I’d have to add at least two other people to my list, although I didn’t think of them as “heroes” at the time. One is my uncle Alan Magee, an artist. I look back and realize that I studied his illustrations and paintings — and his independent way of life — for clues about how I could live. The other is my father, Richard Magee, who read my early attempts at writing and, by making marginal comments, showed me that choosing the right word is a serious business, that writing is a painstaking process, a challenging craft. Also, my father — my whole family, really, including my mother Joyce and brother Rich — is liberal in a sense that seems to have been lost: open-minded, tolerant, generous, compassionate. I would say that my late-blooming interest in jazz — after growing up listening to seventies pop and learning classical piano — owes something to that background.

TT I didn’t think in terms of heroes as a child, or at least I don’t remember thinking that way. Nor do I remember why I didn’t. I guess my mind simply didn’t work in those terms — which isn’t really an answer, is it? Not until high school did I run across anyone with whom I felt that kind of intimate identification, and then it was Samuel Johnson, Boswell’s Dr. Johnson. At first I was fascinated by the way he talked in Boswell’s Life, but as I learned more about him I came to understand that he was infinitely more than just a great talker. Dr. Johnson went to battle each day with crippling handicaps, some physical and others psychological, in his never-ending struggle to be as good a man as he could possibly be. Some days he won, others he lost, but he never gave up. I was stunned by that aspect of his courage — the everydayness of it. He’s been my personal hero ever since then, and still is.

Needless to say — at least I hope it’s needless — I think Louis Armstrong would make a pretty damn good hero, too.

Journalist Terry Teachout

Kansas City Jazz:

From Ragtime to Bebop — A History author Chuck Haddix

CH  My childhood hero was Ray Charles. It was through Ray that I first heard soul music and became introduced to African American music forms.

PG  Probably both my father and grandfather, for a variety of reasons — mostly because they represented a kind of certainty, uprightness and character, as well as a sense of exploration and an openness to self-expression that I very much admired.

Sam Cooke biographer Peter Guralnick

Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, and a World on the Brink author David Margolick

DM  I suppose the closest thing I had to a hero was John F. Kennedy. I don’t think that anyone’s death, even to this day, has upset me as much as his. So, on some level I must have really loved and admired him. I also looked up to anybody who was helping the Boston Red Sox win games, so I guess I liked Carl Yastrzemski and some his teammates as well, but I can’t say I ever worshipped them. I suspect that journalists are not hero worshippers — we are always on the sidelines watching, never allowed to truly cast our lot with anybody.

TB   I think it would have to be Brooks and Frank Robinson.

JJM  You’re not going to tell me you are an Orioles fan, are you?

TB  Of course I am. I grew up in Pennsylvania, about an hour-and-a-half from Baltimore. We went to games once or twice a year, and I watched them on television. I was about eleven years old when they played in the 1966 World Series, the year they were a fantastic team. I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania, and was very naïve about race, so naïve, in fact, that I once asked my mother if Brooks and Frank were related. She explained to me that it wouldn’t be possible, but I said that it could be, couldn’t it?

Thomas Brothers, author of Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans

Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War author Karl Marlantes

JJM

 Who was your childhood hero?

KM   The first person that comes to my mind is Captain Horatio Hornblower.

JJM  Why him?

KM  I was always very shy when I was a kid, and am still pretty introverted. So, here’s a guy who’s awkward and shy and yet he’s the bravest naval captain in the British Navy. It is the perfect seven or eight year old boy person to identify with. He’s always terribly concerned about his crew and fairness, and then he does all the brave deeds. At the same time, he’s bumbling around and can’t talk to any girls. So, he is who popped into my mind just now – assuming it’s fair to use a fictional character.

JJM  Sure it is. Did you carry him with you on the battlefield?

KM   Oh, that’s interesting. Of course! He is one of the great models of an ethical warrior, and my definition of an ethical warrior is one who is not out there just to slaughter people, he is trying to accomplish things for his crew and his country. He’s a leader. In an unconscious way, I think he probably was important to me on the battlefield. I haven’t thought of those novels for years, and your question got them to pop into my head.

RK  I have two childhood heroes. My real childhood hero when I was about five years old was Admiral Lord Nelson. I remember that my mother actually ended up making me a sailor’s costume and a hat, which was very difficult because Nelson lost his arm at the Battle of the Nile, so the jacket only had one arm and I had to pin mine down inside. But I was so fanatical about this great sailor that I wanted to be him when I was about five or six years old. So he was my first great hero, and it all came from a book that my grandmother gave me, which is a Victorian book called The Little Book of Heroes. I think it over-egged the pudding about what a hero he was, but I certainly believed it when I was a very small boy. So that’s my first one.

 My second one, which was my first musical hero, was Fats Waller. That’s because when my father came back from the war – he served with the RAF in Hong Kong – he brought with him a huge collection of 78 rpm gramophone records. I have no idea how they survived the voyage, but they did. Mainly they were Duke Ellington, Earl Hines, and Fats Waller, and that’s what I was played when I was a little child to keep me quiet. They used to put on stacks of 78’s on one of those things where the records would drop one after another and just play, almost like the precursor of the bands of an LP, and so I’d hear five or six Fats Waller tunes in a row. Now, of course, at that stage, being very small, I listened to the words and the funny lyrics, and I wasn’t really taking much notice of the music, but I suspect it must have crept in.

Alyn Shipton, author of Hi-De-Ho: The Life of Cab Calloway