Understanding kids' worship of celebrities
Understanding kids' worship of celebrities
By: Bill Mead
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Posted by editor Mon Jan 22, 2007 11:44:35 PST
Viewed 498 times
0 responses 0 comments I keep telling myself that vanity plays tricks with our memories. As we get older (and hopefully smarter) we get pretty good at forgetting the dumb stuff we did before arthritis and other ailments made it impossible, or at least painful, to do any more dumb stuff. We don't behave better as we age. We just lie better.
I exempt my wife from this harsh assessment because it's clear to me she has been morally squared away from the moment she was born. That's why I let her get away with her tirades about the tacky behavior of young people nowadays. I'm pretty sure she talked like that in kindergarten so she isn't singling out today's kids for criticism.
On the other hand, you don't hear me badmouthing young people. I was at least as bad and probably worse when I was their age. If I'm better now it's because I'm too frail to be otherwise and not because I've seen the light.
I feel the need to unburden myself about this because I was momentarily shocked when I read the results of a recent survey that asked young folks which prominent people they admired the most. Nearly two thirds of the most-admired people were celebrities whose contributions to society totally escape me. I didn't see anybody on the list who is doing good things for humanity.
Then in the midst of my outrage I remembered my Dillinger days. This goes back to the 1930s when motorized outlaws were roaming the nation's heartland. I was one of the little savages in our Des Moines neighborhood who practically worshiped these thugs, keeping our fingers crossed that they would continue to evade the law. I don't recall that we felt any kinship with Bonnie and Clyde, perhaps because a girl was getting top billing in that bloody soap opera. We were rooting for John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd. This wasn't all bad because it made us read the paper every day to see if our role models were still on the loose.
Our favorite media darling was Dillinger, whom we considered the logical successor to Robin Hood. I can still remember the thrill of learning that Dillinger actually robbed a bank in Mason City, Iowa, not far from Des Moines. After that, we carefully scrutinized every Ford V8 that passed through our part of town, hoping it was Dillinger at the wheel. When a cop car showed up on our street one day to corral somebody's drunken husband, word flashed that it was a stakeout aimed at Baby Face Nelson.
Then came the rumor that Dillinger had been gunned down in Chicago. My brother and I ran up to Ninth Street for a copy of the Des Moines Tribune, hoping it was all a case of mistaken identity. When we spread the paper out for our ruffian friends to read, we had to accept the awful truth. I remember it as one of the gloomiest days of our young lives.
But we recovered fast and transferred our hero worship to baseball's Babe Ruth and radio's Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. The best news is, none of our gang ever took up bank robbing.
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