One thing my generation had in abundance was heroes. While I was raised by Christian, God fearing and Bible believing good people, as a child when faced with some moral dilemma like whether to take those forbidden cookies the decision might not be based on considering what Jesus would do, but rather what Dick Tracy or the Phantom would do.

You see, when someone like my great-grandmother said something was wrong, that was gospel to me as a boy and I’d be quick to go to fist city with anyone that disagreed. However, Jesus was somewhat esoteric to me as a child, but the funny papers and comic books of the time had real heroes I admired and to whom I could more readily relate. Some will construe this as an early indicator of my lack of moral perception. After all, once you admit Dick Tracy and the Phantom trumped Jesus when it came to moral decisions you obviously already had one foot in hell as a child, a point emphasized by Sam Clemens through Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Face it; when a boy would rather play the role of a pirate than a preacher, an Old Testament prophet or New Testament Apostle he is a sure-fire contender for perdition.

Alas, my failings and shortcomings during childhood were manifold. But the good people who influenced my life, who emphasized doing right rather than wrong were often secondary to the moral instruction I received from the funny papers and comic books, the radio programs and films of the time. The difference between then and what was to come was the fact children of my time could depend on good overcoming evil; the good guys like Dick Tracy and the Phantom would always triumph in the end. Unfortunately, children today don’t have the heroes I knew as a child. The grim reality of the times mocks what is construed as the innocence, the naiveté and altruism of yesteryear, and children today are not taught the kind of morality I was taught as a child. And certainly they would seek in vain for any in positions of leadership in America that invite emulation, let alone any they would construe as “heroes.”

The “superheroes” of my time like Superman and Captain Marvel did not factor into my moral decisions very much because they were beyond the kin of whether or not to steal cookies or try to cheat while playing marbles. In somewhat the same fashion, the caution that God or Jesus was watching you didn’t have the same emphasis in my life as a child as did my heroes like Dick Tracy. The reason being I could think of becoming a man like Dick Tracy, but I couldn’t possibly relate to God or Jesus in the same manner. What kid ever thought he wanted to grow up to be a man like God or Jesus? Foreign as such a thought would be to any kid, the very impossibility of such a thing would prevent it ever being credited. Ah, but to grow up to be a man like Dick Tracy, that was attainable; and heroes like the Phantom and Tarzan, our cowboy heroes and some others were there as well.

There is no doubt in my mind the masterful Sinclair Lewis had some fun with his Elmer Gantry’s preaching Jesus was no sissy, attempting to cast Jesus in the heroic role of real two-fisted manhood. The failure to do so was not because there was any lack of examples of Jesus being a real man in the New Testament; bravery and courageousness are characteristics of Jesus. The problem was the same I encountered as a child; I could relate to Dick Tracy and others in a way impossible for me when it came to Jesus. He was too much in the category of the superheroes of my time; fascinating to read about, but impossible of attainment. Besides, casting out demons and performing miracles was somewhat beyond my understanding, and I knew I couldn’t perform magic like Mandrake or make myself invisible like the Shadow, I knew I couldn’t fly like Superman, but I could be a good guy like Dick Tracy fighting bad guys.

In many ways, Jesus was too much like the “virtual reality” of today’s electronic games and special effects. The reality is far removed from any kind of virtual reality. Who in their right mind would compare “virtual sex” with the real thing? Cops and soldiers can train with virtual reality for the “real thing,” but nothing will take the place of the real thing. Pilots and astronauts train in simulators, but all of them will tell you it isn’t the same as the real thing. Firing electronic “guns” in simulation will never take the place of a .44 magnum’s roar and kick or firing a real machine gun, and most especially not when a real person is firing back trying to kill you and the whizzing sound of bullets flying by is the real thing.

The many years have passed and I no longer have the heroes of childhood to emulate, nor do I spend much time thinking about God or Jesus watching what I do. They remain in the category of superheroes or virtual reality. What I do have is the belief my loved ones gone on before me may be watching; and more than any deities or heroes this prevents me from stealing those cookies. For me, this is the moral equivalent of belief or faith in any deities. And while politicians pander for votes declaiming on their “faith,” I think it would serve better to know their pedigree in respect to whether they have any like my departed loved ones to keep them straight and honest, those they believe they will have to answer to rather than their various professed deities.

I’m not sure but what the phrase “black and white” is no longer acceptable as a measure of determining something obvious, perhaps failing the test of political correctness these days, but it remains the way children view their world. To a child, some things are simply right and some things are simply wrong without the many shades of grey that will come to plague them as adults, acerbated by the legions of lawyers running the country that invariably make issues grey that would seem to be obviously right or wrong. Leave it to the Devil’s disciples, lawyers, to try to make everything some shade of grey without any moral distinctions of simply right and wrong. In this way, monsters continue to be free to prey on children, and murderers are judged by their degree of intelligence and social factors rather than the heinous acts of which they are guilty. One may be excused for eventually concluding most politicians, lawyers, and judges are pedophiles, molesters, drunks, and thieves given the decisions they make favoring criminals over their victims.

To give Jesus his due, since the present crop of politicians is making professions of “faith,” it would serve them well to consider the words of Jesus that unless a person is “born again” they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. I have come to believe Jesus may have been cognizant of better science than many of his proclaimed followers. I think Jesus may have had an idea about that 96% of the universe scientists theorize is unknown and perhaps even unknowable. Long ago I began to entertain the thought that while death was pronounced on humankind because of The Fall, we will be “born again” into an afterlife even as we are born into this one, but with the promise of “resurrection bodies” not subject to disease, death and decay.

Another thing to which politicians, and others, would do well to pay heed that profess to be followers of Jesus is his injunction that unless one becomes like a little child they will never enter the kingdom of heaven. In this Jesus affirmed the simple verities of childhood where the issues are never grey, but simply black or white, right or wrong. And the real heroes are those that choose to do what is right no matter how appealing the Devil’s offer to do wrong.

Good people will do good. I don’t believe good people need deities, heroes, or even departed loved ones to whom they think they will have to answer. No matter the evil and corruption we face in America, I think good people are able to separate good and evil and reach moral conclusions without the dubious benefit of being preached to by clergy, pundits, or politicians. The real problem I think we are facing is the declining options of choosing good over evil. And it is in this decline of options to choose the good Dick Tracy has fallen to the wayside and children no longer have the heroes I knew as a child.