Who were you in awe of when you were a child and why?

Dad. He drove hundreds of miles on Sunday night to get to jobs up and down the East Coast (of the USA), worked hard all week, and then drove home on Friday nights to be with us – and we had a good time with him. Mom seemed to like him a lot, too.

My dad. He was tall and dark. I didn’t see him often because he was a doctor. He was very serious and not particularly approachable. Sometimes he was funny, but that often had a scariness about it, such as acting like a monster.

Delana, a teenaged girl who lived across the street. She was sweet, beautiful, popular among her peers, and liked by adults. She had a lovely name (it was pronounced Duh-LAY-na). From the perspective of my age 6 or 7 self, she was the height of elegance and sophistication.

I’m sure that Delana was just an ordinary high school student. But, to me, she was everything I hoped I could be. I was a brat to most babysitters; when Delana watched me, however, I behaved like a perfect little lady and watched her with star-struck adoration.

My Rabbi. He seemed so aloof . Also certain friends of my father who seemed so different from him. I wasn’t really in awe of Dad, just a little scared of him from time to time when I thought he was angry with me.

The only hero I remember from my very young years was Dale Robertson from Tales of Wells Fargo. I used to watch this with my father on our first television set.

I was in awe of books and had an obsession with aladdin.

I was always trying to get my hands on whatever reading material wasn’t age appropriate.

But really the people I liked a lot came to visit or we visited them. Out of towners. I figured it was because I didn’t know them well enough not to like them.

I didn’t have heroes I had anti heroes. Heros (hmm.. feminine or masculine the plural form of the word changes, I think, so not sure which to go with.) are people you don’t know well enough to see how flawed they are and have yet to disappoint you.

I was also determined to be a perfect person. But at some point in time I realized that was boring… and ok… impossible. I started embracing flaws in others and lately realizing they were ok in myself too. They add uniqueness and flavor and make others dependent on each other even whilst pushing people away.

They are beautiful frustrating ugly and more importantly they aren’t going anywhere. If you are in awe of someone that means that to remain in the same state of awe you must continue to not know them very well. Why would you want that when it involves someone you like and admire.

Tom Swift and the Hardy Boys. Doc Savage and Nancy Drew and Willy Wonka. These characters were magic and could solve problems and get into and out of trouble and were strong and clever. It didn’t matter that they weren’t real. They were the only ones I was in awe of that I can think of. Real humans didn’t hold a candle to them.

Astronauts. And I still am.

I remember my very first role model was Judith Durham I loved her voice and thought she was very pretty. I met her a couple of times as a child when my dad took me to her concerts.

* I was in awe of Superman. I used to pray that I could fly. This is one of my first realizations that prayer didn’t work, at least not for superhero stuff, when I tried it off the garage roof.
* I was in awe of a kid in 6th grade named Steve Smith. He was the most popular kid in school—a jock, class president, president of this and that, you know the type. One of the best days in my life was a day in winter when school let out early because of snow, and he invited me over to his house to check out his trains.
* I was in awe of anybody who could cab-whistle with his fingers. Despite lessons from some of the foremost whistlers (and their mothers) of the time, I never mastered the skill.

My mom said I was hard to impress as a child, and we can recall no one I was in awe of.

I did like Superwoman a lot though and had that as my underoo’s…lol