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BOYS’ OWN ADVENTURES
The first man I can remember ever admiring
was Philip Panos, the scoutmaster of my Boy
Scout troop, way back in the day. Panos was a
retired admiral who, among other things, had
been stationed in Hawaii in 1941, where he
was taking a group of Sea Scouts (they had
those back then) on a trip between the islands
when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor—he
witnessed the entire thing from an open boat
in open water. As a scoutmaster he was the
very model of what such a man should be: a
guy who could go anywhere and do anything
from rappelling down a cliff to setting broken
bones to surviving and thriving in the wild
with a broken knife and some pocket lint, and
taught his boys how to do the same. I suspect
that had I stuck with the Boy Scouts I'd have
qualified for commando training; instead I
discovered rock and roll and girls and suddenly
I was too cool for Scouts, but I never lost my
respect for the admiral and his determination
to turn snot-nosed boys into capable men.
What This Has to Do with Books: Recently
there has been a wave of books and other
entertainments devoted to the idea that we
Y-chromosome types have strayed too far from
the spirit and skills of our pioneer forefathers,
that we've failed our sons by giving them Xbox
instead of Bowie knives and watched them
learn how to navigate cyberspace but not
how to find their way out of the woods. The
big seller last year was something called The
Dangerous Book for Boys, a compendium of
various skills and pranks that used to be part
of every boy's bag of tricks, but the shelves
were flooded with books about building
soapbox derby cars and wooden toys, how-to
guides for folding paper footballs and sailing
boats, and camping and survival guides galore
(not to mention the popularity on TV of alpha
guys like Bear Grylls and Les Stroud roasting
lizards and chipmunks over open fires in No
Man's Land).
The idea seems to be that boys who never
learn the masculine virtues grow up to be per
petually helpless and spineless man-children,
but it's not just a lack of skills that's to blame.
Boys, it is believed, also need exposure to the
exploits of heroes, men of courage and forti
tude throughout history whose examples will
teach lads to live bravely, act nobly and, if
need be, die with honor. This is not altogether
untrue, and that's where Neil Oliver comes in.
A presenter with the BBC, Oliver has come out
with his own handbook to heroism in the old-
fashioned mode, Amazing Tales for Making
Men Out of Boys (HarperCollins, 2009).
Oliver's book looks, feels and reads like
something from the first half of the last cen
tury, before the Teddy Roosevelt ideal gave
way to the Benjamin Spock ideal. The illus
trations are utterly retro, reminiscent of old
primers and weekly readers, and the stories are
pure boy. The exploits of the French Foreign
Legion in Mexico, dying en masse but never
surrendering to the overwhelming foe. Josiah
Harlan, the inspiration for The Man Who Would
Be King. Admiral Nelson dying at the Battle of
Trafalgar even as his brilliant tactics defeated
Napoleon's navy and saved England from
invasion. Poor, doomed Apollo 13. John Paul
Jones and "I have not yet begun to fight!"
The storming of Omaha Beach and the Charge
of the frigging Light Brigade. And weaving
between all these tales is the story of Scott
of the Antarctic, from boy of
humble means to famed explorer
of the last frontier on Earth.
Oliver presents his tales with
breathless enthusiasm and he
is a decent storyteller, though
prone to somewhat preachy
asides about the aforementioned
manly virtues demonstrated by
his heroes. If we judge his book
oh what it does—that is, pres
ent exdting tales of real-life
derring-do—then it's worth the
addition to the family library.
If we judge it on what it's try
ing to-do, then its value is less
certain. I was raised on a steady
diet of this stuff, along with
plenty* of Kipling and Dumas and
Jack London and Robert Louis
Stevenson, and while at 12 I
wanted to be Indiana Jones, at
18 I wanted to be Keith Richards.
There is no guarantee that foist
ing this stuff on young minds is
going to have the magical effect
this new crop of retro-dads seems
to want (I have a 14-year-old
son; believe me, I know about
this), and certainly it's no substi
tute for parenting by example. I
suppose what I'm saying is pick up this book
and give it a shot, but don't try to pass down
your coonskin cap just yet.
A Sad Note: Speaking of admirable men,
however, one of them has just left us. Frank
McCourt, author of the heartbreaking memoir
Angela's Ashes and its sequels 7is and Teacher
Man, passed away on July 19 at the age of 78.
A Pulitzer Prize-winner and now required read
ing in many high schools, McCourt's story of a
childhood spent in crippling poverty-in Ireland
is one of the most depressing books you'll ever
read, and one of the most beautifully written.
McCourt was a man who knew that spinning
straw into gold is a craft, not an art, and he
did so with consummate skill and humanity.
He will be missed.
John G. Nettles
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