I read John Howard Griffin’s “Black like Me”. It’s an okay book, was then, is now. It’s an interesting insight into the differences- at least when it was written- between the races and the way they live.

Having read the book, I was all on fire to go out and fight the injustices being perpetrated on blacks by whites, and I was pretty vocal about it. My mother tried to argue me out of my newfound fervor, but dad just got me in the truck, and we went for a ride around downtown Gary.

There was gunfire, and plenty of it. There was a lot of disorder and disaster. Even as Itried to retain my righteous indignation I realized that ‘Black like me” contained a piece of a story, and there were other pieces it didn’t contain.

It dawned on me- and this was a p[retty early ages- that maybe just because someone writes a book and gets paid to do so, it doesn’t make them the expert on anything.

Quite a few years later, but still many years ago, I managed to lay my hands on an email address for Sir (Not sir at the time, btw) Arthur C Clarke. We had, over the course of two or three years, an email correspondence. One of my very early emails to him explained that I was a devoted fan, who loved literally all his work, and that even if he should turn out to have feet of clay, I would still enjoy his work.

There were allegations that Clark was a shorteye, later on, though I never saw any concrete evidence of this. My fears of the author having feet of clay were founded in some reality.
His response?

“I assure you, my feet are made of the Very Finest Clay”

I have always looked- not at the shining visage of the hero, but lifted up his pantleg and pulled down his sock. Invariably, clay. Inevitably, heroes fail, they fail themselves, they fail each other, they fail you. I have come to eschew Heroes. Perhaps it’s because I’m older and more cynical, perhaps i just came to smart on the subject sooner than many. Nobody can question my heroes because I have none- even the people I respect most, I’m often more familiar with their failures than successes.

Of couse, as I’ve found out in the last several days, God forbid you question the integrity of someone else’s heroes. Eric Hoffer, god rest his ornery soul, was spot on, on that one.