In What Way Was John Glenn the Last American Hero?

Alice George titled her book The Last American Hero: The Remarkable Life of John Glenn to reflect her view of Glenn as a singular figure in American history—a man whose life embodied a heroic ideal that she believes has faded from the national consciousness. In her portrayal, Glenn isn’t just a hero for his feats as a fighter pilot, astronaut, and senator, but a symbol of a bygone era when Americans embraced real, flawed individuals as icons of courage and service. She suggests that his 1962 orbit of Earth, his steady character, and his lifelong dedication to public duty made him a unifying figure during a fractious time, like the Cold War and the turbulent 1960s—a role she argues is rare in today’s cynical age.

George doesn’t explicitly dissect the title in the book, but her narrative implies a nostalgia for a time when figures like Glenn could capture the public’s imagination without being torn down by modern skepticism. In interviews around the book’s 2020 release, she noted how Glenn’s death in 2016 prompted obituaries that universally hailed him as heroic, striking her as a contrast to a culture quick to spotlight flaws over valor. She seems to propose that Glenn might be “the last” because society now favors fictional superheroes over flesh-and-blood ones, a shift she ties to a loss of faith in human potential amid scandals and division. The title’s provocative edge—implying no successors—challenges readers to consider whether such heroes can still emerge, or if Glenn’s mold, forged in a specific American moment, is truly broken.

The book brought to mind two other books I've read in recent years, the first being The Last Boy, Jane Leavy's book about Mickey Mantle. "The Sports Illustrated journalist titled her story The Last Boy because sports journalism was moving into a new era. Up till Mantle, the innocence of our heroes was preserved because of the unwritten rule that journalists protect the privacy of person's of importance. They helped maintain the images that had been carefully crafted.

"Leavy essentially states that at a certain moment in time a shift occurred. Up until then, if you revealed what you knew about a player, you were bad. You were slapped on the wrist and sent to your room without supper. Post-Mantle, in the new era of sports journalism, if you failed to reveal something you knew, you were punished. Writers were no longer permitted to conceal. It was their job to reveal."(1)

In both books, the authors use a singular iconic figure to illustrate how journalism in particular, and the broader culture in general, have changed.

The second book that came to mind was Ghost Burglar, by Jim King and Jack Burch. Ghost Burglar is the story of Bernard Welch, one of the most successful thieves in U.S. history, as well a surprisingly witty prison escapee, with two such exits under his belt. 

The book does an excellent job of showing the education of Bernard Welch, how he learned his trade and how he’d become so elusive. How did he end up with a home, including a sauna and indoor pool, in one of Duluth's most elite neighborhoods? That was a lesson he learned from an incident earlier in his career. He was an east coast crook, rich neighborhoods from Jersey to D.C., but he got caught because 200 miles away is still too near when fencing stolen goods. During his first stint in prison he assessed the mistakes he'd made and refined his methods. One of these was how to put his stolen merchandise back into the market and he settled on an unsuspecting community a thousand miles away.(2)

The reason this latter book came to mind is because one of the homes Bernard Welch robbed was that of John Glenn's. There were awards Glenn had received for his achievements, made of gold, which the burglar stole and melted down for resale. 

Though each of these books tell different tales, it's interesting how they also intersect and reveal things about the times we live in.

(1) The Shifting Tides of Sports Journalism

(2) Ghost Burglar

Related Link
Eight Minutes with Jack Burch and Jim King, Co-Authors of Ghost Burglar

Flies Won't Mate in a Petri Dish

Creative Commons 2.0

Sometime this past week, one of the articles I was reading--and I can't recall which or where or by whom--included this sentence: "Flies won't mate in a petri dish." For some reason the statement was so unusual and intriguing that I scribbled it down and typed it into a "Notes" file. 

A few days later I noticed that I had included several paragraphs of text. Was this a cut-and-paste from the article or were they my own original words? The beginning of a blog post or a story? I knew that the last part came from my own observations about sterile work environments. However, rather than be guilty of plagiarism I decided instead to turn the core elements of the article into a poem, smitten by an urge to create.

                     * * * * * 

Flies Won’t Mate in a Petri Dish

Beneath the hum of sterile light,

Gleams a petri dish, cold and tight—

A cage of glass, pristine, severe,

With trapped flies buzzing there in fear.

Wings slice air, iridescent, bold,

Even so, no courtship dance unfolds.

No rot, no breeze, no wild decay,

Just a void where instincts fray.  

Dr. Voss, standing mute with trembling hand,

Dreams of strains of fly she’s deftly planned—

Glowing genes, a perfect breed,

But the flies defy her sterile creed.

“Too clean,” she sighs, “too pure, too still,”

Chaos, not order, spurs their will.

In meadows rank with ferment’s call,

They’d mate—not here, they scorn the wall.  

With a sprinkle of mold and a desperate plea,

Antennae twitch, the flies dance with glee.

The dish, once tyrant, hums alive,

Proving life in mess will always thrive.

Utopians chase their polished dream,

A world too smooth, a muted gleam—

Like flies, we shun the sealed design,

For in the stink, the soul aligns.  

Office tombs with all their windows shut,

Oppress the heart, the spirit cut.

Perfection falters, hollow, bare,

While struggle breeds what’s raw and rare.

From petri prisons to grand ideals,

The flawed, the real, is the thing that heals—

Flies and men, in chaos free,

Find love where life is meant to be.  

                    * * * * *

Throwback Thursday: Everythng Is Broken

"It's nice to be known as a legend, and people will pay to see one, but for most people, once is enough. You have to deliver the goods." ~ Bob Dylan, Chronicles

Maybe one reason some people like Dylan is simply because of the durability of his career. Like the Energizer Bunny he just keeps going. Like the Cinderella Man he keeps coming back.

Yesterday I noted that John Hinchey called John Wesley Harding "the comeback of comeback albums." Others have hailed Blood on the Tracks as Dylan's great comeback, and it certainly was an exceptional album after the early Seventies period that produced the critically dissed Self-Portrait, Dylan and Planet Waves. When Dylan released Time Out of Mind in 1997 it was yet another comeback level achievement, winning a Grammy and receiving flurries of critical acclaim. His Never Ending Tour had been on the road nearly ten years, but now people were beginning to notice.

I don't recall many people calling his Gospel Period a comeback, though Slow Train Coming is a superfine album for its production values, cohesiveness and earnestness. Songs like "Serve Somebody" and "Precious Angel" are written in the old Dylanesque style but with a new born-again sensibility. You don't fake the emotion he conveys in "I Believe In You."

The comeback I wanted to talk about this morning, though, occurred in 1989 with the release of Oh Mercy. Rolling Stone gave the album high marks and I remember wondering if that was only because they're so predisposed to liking Dylan. Still, I bought the vinyl and continue to listen to it to this day.

Oh Mercy was hailed as a comeback, not just because it had songs noticeably more meaningful than anything Bob Dylan had recently released, but because Daniel Lanois' production gave it cohesion. There was cohesion on Empire Burlesque, of course, but that cohesion was a little too slick, a little too commercial, whereas this record was filled with atmospheric, hazy production -- a sound as arty as most assumed the songs to be. And Dylan followed suit, giving Lanois significant songs -- palpably social works, love songs, and poems -- that seemed to connect with his past. And, at the time, this production made it seem like the equivalent of his '60s records, meaning that its artiness was cutting edge, not portentous. ~Stephen Thomas Erlewine

In Dylan's Chronicle: Volume One, he devotes an entire chapter to this period of new fertility when Oh Mercy was birthed. Keep in mind that the book is only five chapters, so that's 20% of the book. The events of this time were important enough to dive into at length. 1987 was a difficult year because he's injured his hand in a freak accident that winter, and was scheduled to do 100 concerts beginning in the spring. It was also a difficult time because Dylan himself was not sure who he was. "There was a missing person inside of myself and I needed to find him."

Dylan states that he had not been writing songs for a while, but then the muse returned. He'd be sitting at a table and twenty-some verses for "Political World" flowed out from his pen. He placed these in a drawer, and they were soon joined by verses for a song called "What Good Am I?" More songs followed and he would see what their relationship would be to one another.

The reason I found Oh Mercy to be such a meaningful album is that it became clear that his "Gospel Phase" had not just been a phase. The heart of his spiritual experiences now seemed integrated naturally into a world view that was less about preaching, but true to a vision of how things are.

Another feature of Oh Mercy is that it is primarily slow songs, reflective and thoughtful songs. It's a nice album to put on at the end of the day when you want to unwind. The only two fast-paced pieces here are the kickoff opener, "Political World" and "Everything Is Broken". "Political World" just lays it out there, an indictment of how things work in our modern age. "Everything Is Broken" gets more specific. It's a "list song" on a theme. It's a broken world, "you'd better get that in your head." Perhaps formulaic stylistically, it makes a point.

This is not a new theme. It hearkens back to Hard Rain. It hearkens back to the Fall and humanity's exile from Paradise. And it implores us to be realistic about what we expect next.

Several songs give direction on this point. Don't catch the disease of conceit. Don't neglect the needy, forgotten and disenfranchised among us. And keep ringing them bells.

Everything Is Broken

Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain’t no use jiving
Ain’t no use joking
Everything is broken

Broken bottles, broken plates
Broken switches, broken gates
Broken dishes, broken parts
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken

Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground

Broken cutters, broken saws
Broken buckles, broken laws
Broken bodies, broken bones
Broken voices on broken phones
Take a deep breath, feel like you’re chokin'
Everything is broken

Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face

Broken hands on broken ploughs
Broken treaties, broken vows
Broken pipes, broken tools
People bending broken rules
Hound dog howling, bullfrog croaking
Everything is broken

Copyright © 1989 by Special Rider Music

Duluth Art Beat: AJ Atwater's One Day Fine Art Estate Sale Is April 12

Abstraction 30 -- 36"x 48"

IN TEN DAYS Duluth artist AJ Atwater will debut 130 New York City and Lake Superior original abstract acrylic paintings at the AJ Atwater Fine Art Estate Sale Saturday, April 12 from 11AM-4PM. AJ Atwater Art will be on display in six galleries at 4701 Cooke Street, Duluth. Atwater calls it "the cream of the cream" of her painting collection.

Here are a few of the pieces that will be on display. You can check out my interview with the artist here at the Duluth Reader website: AJ Atwater’s big canvas blowout: Duluth Meets Manhattan.

Fog -- 16"x 20"

Still Life with Oval -- 16"x 20"

Yellow Series 2 -- 24"x 30"

Red Series 6 -- 10"x 10"

Palisade Head -- 24"x 30"

The Artist: AJ Atwater

The more you engage, the more you see.

Sunshine and large windows make colors brght.

 

 “Lake Superior is my Manhattan” ~ AJ Atwater

Related Links

AJ Atwater and PROJECT 30/30 

Virtual Reality Meets Virtual Gallery: AJ Atwater's 400 Paintings

Sneak Preview: Kuth and Atwater's Affordable Fine Art Show

Broken Promises, Stolen Lands: The Shame of the Trail of Tears

This past weekend the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in Duluth finished hosting an exhibit titled "Man's Inhumanity Towards Man," featuring sections on violence, religious oppression, slavery, treaties, and inequality. There are so many heartbreaking chapters in human history, with this collection touching but a portion. The invention of the guillotine and its use during the Reign of Terror during the Frech Revolution is but one example of what humans are capable of. A spotlight on the Manson family is similarly revealing. Both of these show what can happen when lawlessness runs amuck.

What sets the Trail of Tears apart from the episodes noted above is that it was initiated by our government, and enforced by our government. 

According to documents acquired by Karpeles, a soldier named John G. Burnett, a captain in Abraham McClellan's company who was assigned to help translate on the Trail of Tears, recorded his memories of the Trail on his 80th birthday. He refers to the Trail as the "most brutal order in the History of American Warfare."

While his recorded memories provide many deeply moving and personal details from the Trail, the weather is perhaps the brutal element of the Trail that he refers to the most. In May of 1838, the Cherokee were rounded up and put into stockades in Cleveland, Tennessee, until October of that year, when they finally began the Trail. This means that they completed the thousand-mile journey in the dead of winter. As Burnett remembers, many were forced to walk in bare feet with only the thinnest blankets for warmth as the sleet and snow fell on them. Due to the cold and exposure, many contracted illnesses like pneumonia and died as a result.

Click to enlarge.

Having read a few books on this unfortunate chapter of our history, one of the things that stands out is that many of these native peoples had already been assimilated into American culture. They were second generation Americans with land, homes and bank accounts.  

Why was it done? Land and power. White settlers coveted the fertile Southeast, especially after gold was found in Georgia in 1829. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, pushed by President Andrew Jackson, codified this lust, framing it as “progress.” Southern states, eager to expand slavery and cotton, pressured the federal government to clear the way. It wasn’t ignorance—it was deliberate, a calculated ethnic cleansing sold as Manifest Destiny. The government knew the cost in lives and chose profit over principle, staining its legacy with a wound still felt today.

The Trail of Tears stands as a shameful chapter in U.S. history due to its brutal execution, the betrayal of trust, and the sheer scale of suffering it inflicted on Native American tribes, particularly the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole—the "Five Civilized Tribes." This forced relocation, spanning 1830 to 1850, saw over 60,000 people uprooted from their ancestral lands in the Southeast to desolate territory west of the Mississippi, in what’s now Oklahoma. The shame lies in the government’s callous disregard for human lives, broken promises, and the naked greed driving it all.

What made it so egregious? First, the conditions: thousands—estimates range from 4,000 to 15,000—died from starvation, disease (cholera, dysentery), and exposure during treks of up to 1,200 miles, often in winter. Families were rounded up at gunpoint, homes burned, and livestock seized, with little time to gather belongings. Survivors recount children and elders collapsing on muddy trails, bodies left unburied. 

The Cherokee’s 1838-1839 march alone claimed around 4,000 lives, a quarter of their population. Second, it was a betrayal. Many of these tribes had adopted European ways—farming, literacy, even Christianity—and signed treaties guaranteeing their lands. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), ruled these treaties valid, yet President Andrew Jackson ignored the decision, famously quipping, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”