My idols

I logged into Facebook two nights ago to see a post from my friend Eve. She works for a major university, and she mentioned her day had been brightened considerably when she walked back from lunch behind a group that included Dr. Jane Goodall, on campus for a lecture. 

This made me happy for a couple of reasons. That Eve was so thrilled about her almost-encounter, and that many of her friends were commenting about how envious they were. These days, I fear many young women wouldn't recognize one of the most trailblazing women of the 20th century, but they could name every member of the extended Kardashian family. I don't have many idols. But I can tell you this: there's not a pop singer or reality show cast member in the bunch.

First up, Dr. Goodall. I have been fascinated by her since I was a child. I suppose I became aware of her through National Geographic, or Life magazine, or television specials. I don't remember a time when I didn't know who she was. I am in awe of her pioneering work at a time when women didn't jaunt off on posh holidays alone, much less set up camp on the rugged terrain of a lakeshore in Tanzania to study chimps. Young women were meant to be housewives, not scientists. The woman was also the subject of her very own Far Side strip. If that ain't cool, I don't know what is. Dr. Goodall will be 77 next week, and the word that comes to mind when I think of her is formidable, 50 years after she first went to Gombe.  I may have an opportunity to meet her next week during her lecture tour, and I will be hard-pressed to form a complete sentence. I love her.



Miep Gies. It is one of the big regrets of my life that I didn't ever get her to sign my copy of  Diary of a Young Girl. Well into her 90s, she would apparently sign copies of the book sent to her from all over the world. For those who don't know her, she was the woman who helped hide the Frank family in that attic for just over two years. When I visited the Frank house and walked through that bookcase into their hiding place I had a physical reaction.  At great personal risk to herself,  Miep helped to shelter eight people and, when the Nazis took them, gathered up Anne's writings for safekeeping, without reading them. Years later, she would say of finally reading the diary, “The emptiness in my heart was eased. So much had been lost, but now Anne’s voice would never be lost. My young friend had left a remarkable legacy to the world." And this one tiny woman, barely five feet tall, who risked her life to protect her friends,  is the sole reason we know Anne's story.  Miep literally gave Anne's voice to the world.

Josephine Baker. Now, admittedly, I love most anything to do with Paris in the 20s and 30s. But Josephine...
Ernest Hemingway said that she was "...the most sensational woman anyone ever saw."  She was a muse to not only Hemingway, but F. Scott Fitzgerald, Picasso, Christian Dior. It is a rare woman who could star in the Folies Bergères, work for the French Resistance, and go on to speak at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King. She rose from sleeping on the streets of St. Louis to becoming the toast of Paris at the start of the Art Deco movement. She married many times, adopted a dozen children, and refused to perform in segregated venues. She staged a triumphant "comeback" in her late 60s, though to the French, she'd never really left. She died four days after opening a retrospective revue of her 50 year career to raves and an audience that included Mick Jagger and Sophia Loren. She was laid to rest with full French military honours.

As for why these particular women are my idols, it isn't about fame, or fortune, or even a truly awesome banana skirt. I want my idols to do far more than hit a high note. It's about what they accomplished but, more than that, what makes these women so special to me is who they were, and are. It's their intelligence and strength of character, their integrity, courage, and spirit. It is the things about them that I hope, in some tiny measure, might someday be said of me. And okay, maybe that banana skirt had a little something to do with it.  It was pretty darn cool.