Heroes for My Son by Brad Meltzer Page B

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    If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advance.
    â€”Orville Wright

— UNSTOPPABLE —
team hoyt
    Father and son. Long-distance runners.

    Although Rick Hoyt is profoundly disabled, he has competed with his father Dick in over one thousand marathons, triathlons, ironman competitions, and other long-distance events.
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    W hen Dick and Judy Hoyt’s son was born with cerebral palsy, unable to walk or talk, the doctors told them to just “put him away.”
    No, they decided.
    They’d push him, pull him, they’d carry him along.
    But he’d never be left behind.
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    When the public schools said there was no place for Rick, his parents found a computer that would write his thoughts from the few head movements he could make.
    At ten, he spoke his first sentence. “Go Bruins!”
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    In high school, Rick learned of a five-mile charity run for a newly paralyzed teenager.
    Rick told his father they had to do something to send a message that life goes on.
    Even though he wasn’t a runner, Dick never hesitated.
    He’d run the race, pushing Rick’s wheelchair the whole way.
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    They finished next to last. It was a victory.
    That night, Rick typed out these words: “Dad, when I’m running, it feels like my disability disappears.”
    Dick’s mission was clear.
    He kept running, Rick always out in front.
    234 triathlons, 67 marathons, 6 ironmans.
    Rick Hoyt still can’t walk.
    But with his father, they both fly. *
    Team Hoyt’s motto: Yes you can.

— FANTASISTS —
joe shuster and jerry siegel
    Inventors of the first superhero.

    The creators of Superman—and Clark Kent—showed the world that the most ordinary of us can turn out to be the most heroic.
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    T hey weren’t good-looking.
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    They weren’t popular.
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    And they were so poor that they used to draw on the back of butcher’s paper.
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    But they were two best friends.
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    With one dream.
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    At the brink of World War II, in the midst of the Great Depression, two kids from Cleveland didn’t just give us the world’s first superhero.
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    They gave us something to believe in. *
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    The trouble with this, kid, is that it’s too sensational. Nobody would believe it.
    â€”One of the first rejection letters for Superman

— NEIGHBOR —
mr. rogers
    Television host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

    With little more than a cardigan and a friendly smile, Fred Rogers spent nearly forty years using public television to teach kindness—just kindness—to children. Did it work? After thieves stole Mr. Rogers’s car, the story was broadcast on TV and in newspapers. The car was returned in two days.
    The note in the car read: “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.”
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    H is parents were so worried about his hay fever, they kept him inside for an entire summer.
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    He had nothing to play with except for a toy piano and some homemade hand puppets.
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    Freddie made the best of it. He had his imagination.
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    He didn’t need anything else. *
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    Knowing that we can be loved exactly as we are gives us all the best opportunity for growing into the healthiest of people.
    â€”Fred Rogers
    When a bubble’s gone, you don’t see it anymore with your eyes. And when an opera is over, you don’t hear it anymore with your ears. But you can remember it. You can remember what bubbles look like and what operas sound like and what friends feel like. And you’ll always have them with you in your memory.
    â€”Fred Rogers

— LAWBREAKER —
miep gies
    Found and preserved Anne Frank’s diary.

    Risking her life for those of her friends, Miep Gies protected eight people in a cramped annex—Otto Frank and his family of four, the Van Pels and their son, and an elderly