A Hero Worth Meeting
Caris, April 2021 Stubby They say never to meet your heroes. But I think an exception can be made when your hero is dead, stuffed, and on display at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. I may need to back up a little. Until a few years ago, I taught a grammar and writing class that culminated each year with a project called Faces of History. It was a bit like a wax museum: each student chose someone from a certain historical period, dressed in costume, and presented a paper written in the first person from that individual’s perspective. My daughter, Caris, was in my class the year we focused on American history. There are plenty of American heroines to choose from, anyone from Sacagawea to Harriet Tubman to Susan B. Anthony. Caris wasn’t interested in the traditional female figures. And though she could have picked any of the countless men who left their mark on the country, she didn’t want to be Samuel Adams, George Washington Carver, or Neil Armstrong. She had someone else in mind. Wh...