Having been born before the advent of multimedia and its huge impact on people’s lives, I consider myself blessed to NOT have had exposure to television until my parents broke down and bought a set when I was 13. Although much aggrieved that most of my classmates knew about wrestling, cowboy adventures and “I Love Lucy” a couple of years before I did, when I look back, having only a radio and books forced me to learn a great deal more about life than any screen could have done.
Early on, my main interests gravitated toward stories about nature’s creatures and human courage. My parents encouraged that interest with age-appropriate books and other reading materials starting when I was in second grade.
Reader’s Digest was one of those publications because every issue has had at least one article about brave people, and I quickly discovered its great jokes too. Rather sheepishly, I admit I still subscribe to it. By high school, I was an avid reader of history, geography and nature subjects, which correspond nicely with an interest in admirable people (but way too many despots and mass murderers).
One clarification is needed, however; notice that I did not include “heroism” in my title. That word belongs to people who do brave or admirable things to help others; “brave” describes those who demonstrate unusual strength of mind or body to improve or save themselves. However, in all fairness, brave people often serve as an example to encourage others to buck up and face adversity as they have done.
It is impossible to know of and write about all the brave people even in the recent past, but I wish to recognize some I consider outstanding and have placed them in arbitrary categories.
An obvious place to begin is mountain climbing, one of the most challenging endeavors of all if considering the Mt. Everest expeditions and similar ones.
Sir George Mallory’s name is legendary partly because of the reason he gave for climbing Everest: “Because it’s there.” Maybe that was related to his own fate; he also IS there, although it was years before his body was discovered several feet below the summit. Many more climbers would lose their lives before the 1953 ascent to the top by Sir Edmund Hillary and the sherpa Norgay Tenzing.
Threats about the harsh conditions do not deter many optimistic climbers. Reports abound about the mountain being the gravesite of over 300 people. It has tons of debris needing removal to keep trails clear; descriptions tell of horrible suffering and death from exhaustion, freezing temperatures, and altitude sickness with cerebral and lung edema from oxygen deprivation.
The mountain has been described as the world’s highest junkyard. With weather conditions limiting climbing to two spring months, recent reports say there are not enough sherpas to meet the demand of would- be climbers.
In addition to the hazards of Everest, there is a mountain in the same range named K2 (Karakoram) on the border between Pakistan and China. Its conditions are considered even harsher, in spite of its altitude being lower. It has worse weather, steeper areas, more avalanche potential and crevices than Everest. Its nickname is “Savage Mountain,” yet significant numbers of climbers try it.
I am guessing that many brave people would agree that these mountain expeditions contain just a few unrealistic thinkers. Furthermore, some very brave but broken-hearted family members and friends of the climbers must be included in the scenario. As unfairly judgmental as it may sound, I believe there is egotism and self-centered mindset in extreme mountain climbing, as in, “Is there no one who loves you and will mourn your painful death?” If achieving fame is the goal, how many people can name any Everest climber other than Hillary and Tenzing?
Closely related to the extremism of the most challenging mountain climbing, another popular “sport” now is rock climbing. Initially it was mostly done using ropes, pulleys and other protective gear. Many who find the endeavor extremely appealing are now pushing the limits and using more dangerous trails and have abandoned “gear” for “free climbing.”
Popular in the U.S. now is El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. The sport began in 1951 and “boasts” an average of 30 deaths per year. The number doesn’t sound that high until one remembers that your average Joe or Joan Citizen does not try to rock climb.
El Capitan has many named routes, and part of the accomplishment seems to be “I want to establish a new one,” so climbers have abandoned the original “nose” area,” which is the “easy way,” for a harder one. It appears that the original challenge became inadequate for some who also established timed climbing so that just summiting the rock face was not good enough; Now a climber can choose to try besting the previous fastest climber to set a record.
Last year a widely publicized news story was about a father and his 20-something daughter who were on a climb, and she fell to her death. Again, maybe I am being too harsh, but what kind of father would have encouraged his kid to take up this sport? What is wrong with golf, or softball, or swimming? And maybe there was a mother in this picture who was a nervous wreck and is still suffering. One more time, was there no one who loved this young woman?
Similar to Everest’s summiteers, how many people can put a name on a single rock climber if fame and glory are a motivating factor? Have you heard the name Dierdre Wolownick? She was a 70-year-old who climbed El Capitan – certainly, an admirable achievement but unlikely to make it into American history annals.
If someone someday writes a volume about odd and bizarre wedding venues and practices, I know of one that should be included. A couple I know centered their wedding ceremony around rock climbing. The groom donned formal clothing and stood atop a cliff in a local park. The bride wore a typical wedding outfit, including a billowy white gown. The video on a family member’s phone wasn’t very clear, but it looked like a free climb – very odd with the blobby white image crawling up a cliff. Three of the couple’s parents were and are still living, and I wonder how they felt about this bizarre event. How interesting it is that the marriage lasted only a few months. Also interesting will be other weird venues a couple may choose for their wedding. Putting on wetsuits for an underwater ocean ceremony, anyone? How about building an enclosure for the couple and throwing in a few boa constrictors for fun?
When making judgments about people’s motivation. I try to keep in mind that I am ceremony and celebratory averse and would not even consider a simple wedding gathering. Chuck Reed and I were married accompanied only by my father before Judge Clair at the Willoughby Courthouse on a Friday afternoon of the second to last week of school. I told my last English class that day that within two hours I would be a Mrs. Reed. They looked at me as if I had just told them a huge whopper, and the marriage lasted 42 years until Chuck’s death in 2008.
Going on to another topic, the world abounds with brave athletes who bring deserved glory for themselves and their countries. The Olympics are a globally popular venue in which skill and dedication to goals are rightfully celebrated. Because of the differences in settings, the Winter Olympics are more prone to accidents and injuries than the summer ones. The athletes are skilled almost unbelievably, so we can watch their achievements with little expectation of the hazards they are facing.
Even groomed snow and ice surfaces contain unknowns: crevices, uneven formations, unpredictable icy areas, wind interference, and glitches in icy areas. Yet, brave skiers go hurtling off prepared ski runs and do aerobatics on the way down. Luge and bobsled racers descend precarious tracks at high speeds. Olympic ice skating gets more demanding and complex than it had been four years earlier, yet in the pairs skating, the woman is lifted and spun perfectly. Viewers forget how one mistake or ice snag could result in horrible injuries or even death.
In the early and mid- 1990s, Sergei Grinkov and Ekaterina Gordeeva, a husband—and- wife pairs team from the Soviet Union, won four world championships and two Olympic golds. Two years after Lillehammer, while practicing in Lake Placid, he told Ekaterina he didn’t feel good. Then both fell to the ice, victims of his massive heart attack at age 28.
Devastated but determined to carry on in his memory, she began skating as a single and at one performance dedicated it to Sergei’s memory and vowed she would “not fall apart.” She didn’t and received probably the most resounding applause ice skating has ever produced -- one small, brave woman of profound strength to be a role model for other athletes and the couple’s daughter.
A love of the outdoors is not normally associated with people who are taking great risks, but many stories about bravery result from unexpected incidents that courageous people overcome. In his book Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Aron Ralston describes his solo hiking trip on mountains in Utah. While scaling a rocky area, he falls 280 feet, followed by a boulder rolling down and trapping his arm. After mentally exploring many other options, he recognizes he will die there unless he can summon the courage to amputate his arm, which he had the instrument to accomplish. His trek to find help afterward, while walking and losing blood to the point of near unconsciousness, is a miraculous account one man’s determination to cheat death.
Many other harrowing experiences have happened to hikers encountering bad weather, threats from animals, and other accidents.
A lengthy narrative by Piers Paul Reed, Alive, recognizes the bravery of a Uruguayan rugby team in 1972 when the airplane they were in crashed in the Andes Mountains far from civilization. Sixteen of the passengers survived freezing temperatures and near starvation for ten weeks in the fuselage of the plane. They survived because two brave men from the group hiked miles to ultimately find help.
There were and still are many people who have achieved fame and wealth by combining courage with very special skills. Consider Houdini, a magician turned escape artist. One of his most famous exhibitions was escaping from a “water torture cell” in which he began by hanging upside down. It was not based on illusion but rather technical skill, athleticism, muscle strength and long practice sessions to increase his lung capacity. He was also very patriotic and taught his techniques to military enlistees for World War I.
For the public’s entertainment and their own unique ways of earning a living, consider Evil Knievel’s airborne motorcycle tricks and the Wallenda family’s high wire walking and biking with some aerobatics thrown in.
Certain non-spectator professions demand great bravery also. The construction of skyscrapers shown in films taken years ago includes workers walking hundreds of feet above ground on girders with no protective sides. Window washers used to sometimes crawl onto ledges to do their work, and even now there are some working on scaffolding or other devices high above the surface. Large equipment with buckets that construction workers often use now have not existed as long as tall buildings have. One might even consider the risks a police officer or taxicab driver faces in our large cities each day on duty.
Some brave workers whose efforts keep us fed and comfortable exhibit immense courage. The fishing industry is one of the most dangerous environments to labor in, especially in far northern waters. Those who complain about the price of king crab legs in a restaurant or store should watch a video of the icy waters, winds, and high waves that crab harvesters deal with in their open-air vessels. They deserve every buck they earn, as do the families these men leave behind, knowing their breadwinner may not return.
Although what is covered above is only a sampling of brave, courageous people, I was lucky enough several years ago to witness one man whose expertise and confident mind-set left indelible memories. It was a beautiful late summer day when First Energy called and asked if a helicopter contract company could use our private, small airport for the day. I had little understanding of the “what for” but gave emphatic permission.
Shortly after, the thump of the Hughes ex-military copter made a straight-in approach on the east runway. A ground crew of mechanics arrived in their van, out of which they hauled a strange looking metal “something” that had a row of about 12 circular saws with a small engine in the middle of them. The men attached the whole device to a big hook on the bottom of the copter, and the pilot fired up to full rpm, ascended straight up slowly and took off over trees to the south where the high lines run. I heard the saws fire up, and he went low over the trees to trim branches that were close to the wires.
Even though I had spent decades around aircraft, I was hugely impressed as I had never seen anything like its equipment or a pilot skilled enough to fly it. In the first place, any helicopter is more complex than a comparably- sized fixed wing airplane. Inspections and maintenance of copters is also more expensive and demanding for the simple reason that with engine failure, a copter pilot’s choice of where to go is only DOWN to a horrible crash, whereas almost all fixed-wing aircraft have a certain glide ratio even with a dead engine (assuming one knows how to use it). Copters don’t give the pilot an airborne time option to search for an open field or a freeway, preferably without heavy traffic.
On the day of our copter’s visit, there was a light breeze of about 15 mph – enough to make his row of saws sway somewhat. Not that the process could be seen from any nearby road, the mental picture of an airborne vehicle flying close to power lines on one side and trees on the other left a permanent nerve-rattling image in my brain. The road crew kept track of his progress and was specifically trained to hear engine problems.
The return leg was no less impressive as the pilot flew nose high over the runway and when close to it, flipped a lever or something inside the cockpit to release the row of saws and their engine from the craft. The ground crew sprang into rapid action, similar to what a pit crew at a racetrack does, and inspected the saws, oiled and fueled the small engine, and re-hooked the whole apparatus to the copter. The pilot and van crew went through the whole scenario four more times that day.
I had a chance and his permission to look inside the Hughes while hearing the flyer’s explanation of its bare-bones appearance. I saw no instruments, or if any, they were very small. The one seat was metal; maybe a second seat was thrown in for a student pilot. Because of the weight demands of the saws, I wondered if the pilot was prohibited from eating dessert after meals. He was a medium-sized fellow who looked to be about 50; he was totally nonchalant about his job and described it rather like a nice Sunday drive. I visualized his career as like staring death in the face for all of each workday. His neurological skills and reaction instincts were hard to imagine. Plus, whatever high salary he makes, I am judging he is underpaid.
The company that owns the aircraft and trains the pilots supplies their tree-trimming service throughout our country, wherever needed. In a land with so much wilderness that ground vehicles and workers can’t access, how fortunate we are to have a whole set of brave people that most residents have never seen. Ohio must actually be one of their easier locales to operate in, compared to mountainous or ocean-front terrain with variable wind speeds.
For sure I haven’t complained about the size of my electric bill since that day when “Huey” showed up.
One of the most inspiring women ever is certainly Jessica Cox, born armless in Arizona in 1983. In spite of the unknown origin of her birth defect, she was urged by her parents to be optimistic and determined. She began learning tasks and developing abilities that sometimes go beyond what normally developed people can accomplish.
One of her first efforts was learning to dress and write with her toes. This ability encouraged her to “reach even higher,” and she became a licensed pilot. She flies a fixed-winged airplane named the Ercoupe, one of the first to include a design with ailerons and a modified rudder on the wings. “Normal” design has a rudder attached to the vertical stabilizer on the plane’s tail that is controlled by foot pedals. The Ercoupe’s design means Jessica can make coordinated turns using only her feet on the yoke, but one can imagine the flexibility needed to bend her legs up to the equivalent of a steering wheel on a car.
Jessica has earned accolades as a public speaker and even more admiration as a loving wife and the mother of two sons. Think of the inspiration she has created in those of us who go around complaining about our arthritis.
A category of courageous, knowledgeable people whom I haven’t yet mentioned includes ones who train, love and work with animals. Trust me that my thoughts about some of them will be forthcoming later.
