Inasmuch as my list of former heroes ends with Eisenhower, my age of greatness seems stalled at about three decades ago. Who are your heroes, then and now?

Is it coincidence that the age of heroes declined with the advent of television, the transformation of

If you are an average American you have no living heroes at all. There is no person that you hold up to your children as an example to follow.

I realized that they had disappeared from my life when I told my son how I walked six miles down a dusty road to see Charles Lindbergh land his plane in a pasture. Unfortunately the visit of the great aviator turned out to be only a rumor. The experience was one of my great disappointments.

"Who is a hero today?" asked my youngest.

Stumped!

I couldn't name one. And neither could he.

Later, with thick pad and pen before me, I made a respectable list of persons I ADMIRED - but, still, not one genuine hero universally recognized.

Thinking I might have become an old cynic, I asked several of my friends - young, old and in-between - to quickly name two present-day heroes.

All blanks.

Not so many years ago, heroes were an important institution of American life. They added dimension and inspiration to our conduct and to our confidence as a nation.

Now we seem to have become too sophisticated, too smug and too self-centered to emulate others of stature.

Perhaps it is because we no longer seem to admire the qualities of achievement, character and challenge which combine to create heroes.

At any rate, the heroes have stolen out of our lives. With them has gone the drive to be great.

After Lindbergh I can remember other heroes who enriched my life: Buck Jones, Tom Mix, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Cochran, School Boy Rowe, Will Rogers, Wrong Way Corrigan, Quentin Reynolds, Ernest Hemingway, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bob Hope, Jimmy Doolittle, Ernie Pyle, Amelia Earhart, Lou Gehrig, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio, General MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Inasmuch as my list of former heroes ends with Eisenhower, my age of greatness seems stalled at about three decades ago. Who are your heroes, then and now?

Is it coincidence that the age of heroes declined with the advent of television, the transformation of

"Who is a hero today?" asked my youngest.

Stumped!

I couldn't name one. And neither could he.

Later, with thick pad and pen before me, I made a respectable list of persons I ADMIRED - but, still, not one genuine hero universally recognized.

Thinking I might have become an old cynic, I asked several of my friends - young, old and in-between - to quickly name two present-day heroes.

All blanks.

Not so many years ago, heroes were an important institution of American life. They added dimension and inspiration to our conduct and to our confidence as a nation.

Now we seem to have become too sophisticated, too smug and too self-centered to emulate others of stature.

Perhaps it is because we no longer seem to admire the qualities of achievement, character and challenge which combine to create heroes.

At any rate, the heroes have stolen out of our lives. With them has gone the drive to be great.

After Lindbergh I can remember other heroes who enriched my life: Buck Jones, Tom Mix, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Cochran, School Boy Rowe, Will Rogers, Wrong Way Corrigan, Quentin Reynolds, Ernest Hemingway, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bob Hope, Jimmy Doolittle, Ernie Pyle, Amelia Earhart, Lou Gehrig, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio, General MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Inasmuch as my list of former heroes ends with Eisenhower, my age of greatness seems stalled at about three decades ago. Who are your heroes, then and now?

Is it coincidence that the age of heroes declined with the advent of television, the transformation of

All blanks.

Not so many years ago, heroes were an important institution of American life. They added dimension and inspiration to our conduct and to our confidence as a nation.

Now we seem to have become too sophisticated, too smug and too self-centered to emulate others of stature.

Perhaps it is because we no longer seem to admire the qualities of achievement, character and challenge which combine to create heroes.

At any rate, the heroes have stolen out of our lives. With them has gone the drive to be great.

After Lindbergh I can remember other heroes who enriched my life: Buck Jones, Tom Mix, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Cochran, School Boy Rowe, Will Rogers, Wrong Way Corrigan, Quentin Reynolds, Ernest Hemingway, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bob Hope, Jimmy Doolittle, Ernie Pyle, Amelia Earhart, Lou Gehrig, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio, General MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Inasmuch as my list of former heroes ends with Eisenhower, my age of greatness seems stalled at about three decades ago. Who are your heroes, then and now?

Is it coincidence that the age of heroes declined with the advent of television, the transformation of

At any rate, the heroes have stolen out of our lives. With them has gone the drive to be great.

After Lindbergh I can remember other heroes who enriched my life: Buck Jones, Tom Mix, Hank Greenberg, Mickey Cochran, School Boy Rowe, Will Rogers, Wrong Way Corrigan, Quentin Reynolds, Ernest Hemingway, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bob Hope, Jimmy Doolittle, Ernie Pyle, Amelia Earhart, Lou Gehrig, Joe Louis, Joe DiMaggio, General MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Inasmuch as my list of former heroes ends with Eisenhower, my age of greatness seems stalled at about three decades ago. Who are your heroes, then and now?

Is it coincidence that the age of heroes declined with the advent of television, the transformation of

Inasmuch as my list of former heroes ends with Eisenhower, my age of greatness seems stalled at about three decades ago. Who are your heroes, then and now?

Is it coincidence that the age of heroes declined with the advent of television, the transformation of the Hollywood star system into instant fame, and expansion of sports into big business?

Today we have transitory entertainment without personal commitment to the personalities or events that make heroes.

We have "celebrities" but not paragons.

Professional athletes are sold and moved like so many cattle. They swear, drink and smoke for TV films. Off the field they make the news by snorting cocaine and shacking up with miscellaneous sex partners, often of the same gender. Super jocks rarely stay in one place long enough to become well known, let alone admired and respected.

Fame devolves today on the likes of Muhammad Ali, Joe Namath, John McEnroe, Dan Marino, Martina Navratilova, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and Johnny Carson. They are envied for their popularity and swinging lifestyles. But we don't name our babies after them.

Despite the current dearth of role models, there is some hope for the immediate future. We do have a few almost-heroes: Pete Rose, Mary Lou Retton, Doug Flutie, Jack Nicholas, Arnold Palmer, Lee Iacocca, Jacques Cousteau, Chuck Yeager, Hank Aaron and Billy Graham.

These could attain immortality with a little more media hype and some public service activity. It takes four legs to support a hero - unique achievement, charisma, a perception of sterling character, and universal approval.

Some really great people miss hero status for lack of one leg. Martin Luther King and Ronald Reagan, for example, fall short of universal approval. It is likely they will become heroes years after their deaths.

Strangely the U.S. space program failed to produce heroes. Perhaps the turnover