Maureen Dowd, "Paterno Sacked Off His Pedestal": Does Anyone Deserve a Statue?

Some 20 years ago, I visited the home of a world renowned Nobel Prize winner, and until today, I cannot forget the sight of the massive bronze bust of his head positioned beside the entryway. At the time, I desperately needed his help regarding a small personal disaster of which he had knowledge, but didn't get it, and, believing that heroes still walked the face of this earth, I assumed that he was too busy saving the world and couldn't spare the time to help me.

Regrettably, I subsequently learned this man did not deserve my adulation. Moreover, perhaps stemming from the crises that I have continued to endure by myself, I have come to realize that there are few if any persons deserving of hero worship. Not Mickey Mantle, not JFK, and certainly not this Nobel Prize winner. Almost all of us are frail, insecure, beset with foibles, and far from omniscient.

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Paterno Sacked Off His Pedestal" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/opinion/sunday/dowd-paterno-sacked-off-his-pedestal.html), Maureen Dowd begins by asking:

"Is it right to pull down Joe Paterno’s statue, as though he were Saddam Hussein?"

Dowd concludes by observing:

"After all those decades acting the part of a modest, moral man, [Paterno] put his own reputation above the welfare of children. The saint in black cleats sold his soul, and Satan leads the dance."

Given what our family has been forced to endure - one of our children was almost raped while at school, and I spent years demanding that the system come to terms with both this specific incident and the commonality of this ugly phenonemon - I certainly would never erect a statue to Paterno. On the other hand, Paterno behaved in the same weak, self-serving manner that I witnessed at the school board when I attempted to bring what happened to my son to their attention.

And if today I am given to passionate intervention involving matters both large and small, perhaps it is only because of the anger that simmers in my soul after what happened to our son.

As Maureen herself can tell you - recall how she once borrowed language from another writer, but acknowledged the matter in a less than forthright fashion - there are few people worthy of emulation. And there are even fewer heroes. After all, we are human, and only statues belong on pedestals.