Old Neal’s Patron Saints and Villains

The Hall of Fame/Shame

Sadly, in our modern world, we no longer speak of personal heroes. Instead, using anodyne corporate language, we talk of “life coaches” and “exemplars.” How boring is that? Bring back the heroes I say!

While words such as mentors and role models are important, I think it is still perfectly fine to say that you have personal heroes. I know that I have a number of them and I admire them for having so thoroughly enriched our lives. I introduce you to some of my Patron Saints in the Pantheon section here in the Hall of Fame.

Conversely, there are those public figures in life who are simply too good to be true. Their gifts, accomplishments, and fame are so great as to be otherworldly. They are successful in everything they do and while they pretend to be “just like us,” they most decidedly are not.

Now it would be against the Old Neal ethos to hold malice toward those who are better than us, to envy them, or to begrudge their hard work and devotion to their life’s calling. Yet when they get to be just a little too much then we can hold them to task—we can point out their foibles, roll our eyes at their pretentiousness. We can poke them in the ribs when they take themselves far too seriously—which, with some of them, can happen quite frequently. You can find my villains, those who seem to take themselves far too seriously, in the Seriously? column of the Hall of Shame.

As with Caesar, I welcome your thoughts as to whether these luminaries deserve a thumbs up or a thumbs down.