by Brad Meltzer
—DREAMER—
jim henson
Creator of Kermit the Frog and the Muppets.
Jim Henson was the voice of Kermit, Ernie, Rowlf, and Dr. Teeth. With the TV show Sesame Street, he taught and entertained generations of children simply by sharing—and believing in—his own idealistic dream.
He didn’t set out to be a puppeteer. He just wanted to work in TV.
But at seventeen years old, when he went looking for a job at a local TV station, they rejected him.
While there, he saw a sign on a nearby bulletin board. The TV station was looking for a puppeteer.
Jim Henson went to the library, checked out a book on puppetry, built a few puppets, and returned to the station.
“Now I am a puppeteer. Will you hire me?”
They gave him five minutes.
It was all Jim Henson needed. *
I’ve got a dream too, but it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy. That’s the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with.
—Kermit the Frog
But green’s the color of spring
And green can be cool and friendly-like
And green can be big like an ocean
Or important like a mountain
Or tall like a tree.
—Kermit the Frog
—DOCTOR—
jonas salk
Scientist and researcher.
After working tirelessly for eight years, Jonas Salk created a vaccine against polio.
It was an epidemic.
Children were becoming sick by the tens of thousands.
It terrified them. Paralyzed them. Broke their bodies.
Jonas Salk spent eight years searching for a way to prevent children from catching polio.
He worked sixteen-hour days, seven days a week.
Among the first people he tested his vaccine on were himself, his staff, and his wife and children.
Next came testing on one million children.
It was a success.
In 1955 America had its vaccine.
As payment, Jonas Salk could have asked for anything in the world.
He asked for nothing.
Edward R. Murrow asked him, “Who owns the patent on this vaccine?”
Salk simply replied, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
In 1952, 57,628 cases of polio were reported in the United States.
Today there are just over 1,500 cases worldwide.
None in the United States. *
Great, we’ve made a great discovery!
—Jonas Salk’s response whenever he was told in the laboratory that something hadn’t worked
—MASTER OF RHYME—
dr. seuss
Author of The Cat in the Hat and other children’s books.
Theodor Seuss Geisel wrote and illustrated Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who, and forty-six other books that have entertained multiple generations. His secret? He’s not like anyone else.
When Theodor Geisel realized that the current crop of children’s books—stories like Dick and Jane—were too nice, he set out to change them.
Life magazine reported that those dull books were leading to massive literacy problems among kids.
So his publisher gave him 348 words not commonly read by schoolchildren but thought important to learn.
He took 223 words from the list and added 13 others. And with only those 236 words, he created a book 1,626 words in length.
He called it The Cat in the Hat.
It sold nearly one million copies within three years. Today over 200 million copies of Dr. Seuss books have been sold. *
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
—The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss’s first children’s book was rejected by twenty-seven different publishers.
—WARRIOR—
bella abzug
Congresswoman. Defense attorney. Leader of the women’s rights movement.
A U.S. congresswoman from 1971 to 1976, Bella Abzug fought for the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, coauthored the Freedom of Information Act, cosponsored the first World Conference on Breast Cancer, and, most important, moved the fight for women’s rights into the mainstream.
It was a disaster.
Willie McGee was a black man convicted of raping a white woman.
In Mississippi. In 1945. It didn’t matter that he was innocent.
The jury deliberated for two and a half minutes before sentencing him to death.
Most people would’ve walked away from the case.
Most people would’ve known they couldn’t overturn the conviction.
Luckily, Willie McGee didn’t have most people for a lawyer.
He had Bella Abzug.
Eventually, all appeals were denied.
In the days before McGee’s execution, the pregnant Abzug traveled to Jackson, Mississippi, for a final hearing.
Her hotel wouldn’t accept her reservation.
Neither would any other hotel in town.
She spent the night in a bathroom stall at the bus station to avoid the KKK.
Willie McGee was executed, and Bella Abzug suffered a miscarriage.
For most people, that would’ve been the end.
But as the next forty-seven years proved, as a member of Congress, as a feminist, as a person who refused to walk away even when she probably should’ve, Bella Abzug was just beginning to fight. *
Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.
—Bella Abzug, who purposely never learned to type in school so that she would never be seen as a secretary
—CULTIVATOR—
dan west
Relief worker. Farmer. Founder of Heifer International.
After seeing the devastation brought about by the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s, Indiana farmer Dan West began sending livestock across the world to the poor and malnourished. His project continued, growing from his small idea to become Heifer International.
There wasn’t enough powdered milk.
So every day, as a relief worker in the Spanish Civil War, Dan had to choose who would go hungry.
Every day he saw the same starving children.
And then Dan West thought of his healthy daughters back in Indiana. He thought of his farm. And he thought of a solution.
“Give them a cow, not a cup.”
He started by sending seventeen cows to malnourished children in Puerto Rico. After World War II, more cows were sent to Europe and Japan then to poverty-stricken Africa and South America.
The only catch?
When each animal gave birth, the newborn animal had to go to another family.
The gift had to continue.
That’s all Dan asked.
One man.
One idea.
Seventeen cows.
Today Heifer International has fed over 8.5 million people in 125 countries. *
In all my travels around the world, the important decisions were made where people sat in a circle, facing each other as equals.
—Dan West
—ANGEL—
mother teresa
Volunteer. Relief worker. The Saint of the Gutters.
A simple nun who left the convent for the streets of Calcutta, Mother Teresa devoted her life to helping “the poorest of the poor.” Most people thought she’d never make a difference.
On one of her first days in the slums, she had five rupees to her name. She gave four away to the poor.
Then a priest asked her for a donation, and her last rupee was gone.
Now she had nothing. She trusted in God to provide.
Later that same day, a benefactor who heard of her generosity came back to give her fifty rupees.
She gave those to the poor too.
When she needed medicine, she went to the pharmacist and said, “I ne
ed the medicines.” The pharmacist laughed and moved on. Mother Teresa walked outside the pharmacy, got on her knees, and prayed. After several minutes the pharmacist brought out the medicine.
At the time of her death, the five-foot-tall nun who gave away her first five rupees had become the inspiration for 4,000 nuns who ran nearly 600 orphanages, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and clinics in over 120 countries.
Since her death, the impact of Missionaries of Charity has not declined.
It’s grown. *
Do not wait for leaders. Do it alone. Person to person.
—Mother Teresa
—VISIONARY—
steven spielberg
Director. Producer. Philanthropist.
Perhaps the most influential filmmaker in history, Steven Spielberg is responsible for some of the biggest movies to hit the silver screen—as well as some of the most vital.
E.T.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Jurassic Park
Jaws
The Color Purple
Schindler’s List
Saving Private Ryan
He is arguably the most famous, most successful, most admired director to ever work in film.
But the most important movies he’s ever made are ones that the fewest number of people will see: the nearly fifty-two thousand videotaped testimonies from Holocaust survivors and other witnesses.
In 1994, in response to the success of Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg established the Shoah Foundation to ensure that the atrocities committed during the Holocaust could never be denied.
The work of the foundation will last far longer than big numbers at the box office. *
Our hope is that the archive will be a resource so enduring that ten, or fifty, or even one hundred years from now people around the world will learn directly from survivors and witnesses about the atrocities of the Holocaust.
—Steven Spielberg
—FLY BOY—
george h. w. bush
Pilot. Navy man. U.S. president.
Before he was president, before he was the director of the CIA, George H. W. Bush was an eighteen-year-old flyboy, America’s youngest naval aviator at the time. During World War II, he piloted fifty-eight ultra-hazardous missions.
“Hit the silk! Hit the silk!” the twenty-year-old pilot yelled to his crew, signaling for them to bail from the smoking plane.
He knew what would happen if they were captured: torture and decapitation.
The plane was a fireball, falling from the sky.
Still, he was determined to save his crewmen, John Delaney and Ted White. He maneuvered starboard to take the slipstream pressure off the crew’s door. It was the one way to give them a better chance to survive.
He gave them enough time to get out first.
But when his parachute opened too early, George Bush’s head rammed into the bomber’s tail.
When he landed, he was bleeding, vomiting, crying.
He’d just survived a burning plane crash.
His crewmates, despite all his actions, didn’t.
His crewmates didn’t just give their lives.
They gave him a reason to appreciate living.
It is a gift George Bush has never forgotten: “This is for Ted White and John Delaney. Here we go….” *
God bless those boys.
—George H. W. Bush
—COMEDIAN—
lucille ball
Actor. Trailblazer.
The star and creative force behind the early TV show I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball became the greatest comedian of her time and one of the most beloved entertainers ever—solely through her ability to find a laugh in what everyone else was taking so seriously.
She was sent to live with Grandmother Peterson.
Grandmother Peterson believed happiness was a sin.
In her house, mirrors were banned—except the one in the bathroom—since they led to vanity.
Instead, Lucy would play in the chicken coop, pretending it was her castle, the chickens her loyal army.
For friends? Lucy created one: “Sassafrassa.”
Only Sassafrassa gave Lucy compliments, telling Lucy she was far more beautiful than Grandmother knew.
Lucy needed to hear it. If she was caught looking in a mirror, she was punished.
This was the girl who relished the chance to see her own reflection.
Contorting her face and widening her eyes in trolley car windows, she loved to see the possibilities. The simple humor of it.
And as she proved to the world, that humor could take on anything. *
Love yourself first and everything falls into line.
—Lucille Ball
Between 1952 and 1953, when TV studio executives thought no one would watch the wacky redhead and her Cuban husband, on a typical Monday night two out of three households with TV sets proved them wrong.
—MAN OF HIS WORD—
george washington
General. Leader. First president.
As the commander of the Continental Army, George Washington won the Revolutionary War. As president of the United States, he won the world’s admiration.
He’d won.
He’d led farmers and fishermen in a battle against the greatest fighting force in the world.
And he’d won.
At that moment—at the height of his popularity—George Washington could have easily declared himself king of America. The people would have followed. He could’ve held power for the rest of his life.
Back in England, the defeated King George III asked what Washington’s plans were.
“They say he will return to his farm,” the American painter Benjamin West replied.
“If he does that,” King George said, “he will be the greatest man in the world.”
And that’s what Washington did.
And he did it again when he left the presidency after his second term.
It was the greatest, most heroic act of his career: putting his faith, not just in his country, but in us. *
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
—George Washington
—TRAMP—
charlie chaplin
Director. Actor. Silent film star.
The instantly recognizable “Little Tramp” of silent film, Charlie Chaplin turned the experiment called movies into a legitimate art form.
When Charlie was seven years old, his mother suffered from hallucinations and migraine headaches so severe that she could no longer care for him and his brothers.
There was only one choice, the doctors decided: She was sent to a psychiatric hospital.
Eventually, they let her out.
When Charlie was fourteen, she went back to the asylum.
His mother had been knocking on front doors, handing out pieces of coal, and insisting they were birthday presents.
She complained of seeing the dead staring at her.
Desperate to stay out of the workhouse, Charlie slept in alleyways, ate from garbage cans, and stole food.
To this day, historians argue about whether or not Chaplin based his most famous character—his Little Tramp—on his own life.
It doesn’t matter.
Within months of the character’s debut, Chaplin was the biggest film star in the world.
The money came quick.
He could afford anything he wanted.
The first thing he did after making his first full-length feature was buy a house in California and hire a nursing staff for his mom. *