My fifth grade project

I recall fondly being in the fifth grade, it was a great time of my youth. It was not yet the 1960 era, sports were the only thing on my mind, not having totally discovered girls yet and life was simple and family oriented.

My fifth grade teacher was one of my favorites too, wise, fatherly and loved to get his students involved in something important and interesting, a true teacher. This was on his mind one morning when he assigned each of us to write an essay on someone we admired in world news, sports or the entertainment field and write a letter to them, asking for a photo to put on our school wall-board.

All the way home I was trying to think who to write to, there were so many sports and entertainment people that I admired, I could not make up my mind.

As I was walking into my home I could hear our black and white television booming something and I could see my Father sitting in his favorite chair watching it intently. I glanced at the screen and stopped in my tracks, frozen. There in beautiful black and white was the coolest man I had ever seen!

He was partially bald, wearing a military uniform and, oh my stars, he was actually wearing an eye patch! My heart was pumping; blood racing and I could barely ask my Father who he was.

Moshe Dayan, my father replied and went on to explain that he was a military leader in Israel. My family was all Irish Catholics and I did not have that much knowledge on Israel, except what I had learned in school, but I had my hero, a military leader and oh my, he wore a real eye patch, I was blown away!

It took a bit of research, but I found where to write and I did just that. A few weeks later I received not only a great letter, but a signed photo and he was wearing that eye patch, I was in heaven.

I made a trip to the library to gather background information for my essay. The librarian happily helped me and I sat down and began going over a few magazines and other material.

The more that I read about my new found hero, the more that I discovered that he truly was just that, a hero, not only to me, but to his people and to Israel. I was so impressed by what I was reading that I lost track of all time. I had no idea how long I had been reading about him, but some time later I noticed a huge stack of magazines, newspapers and a few books laid out in front of me.

I completed my essay, retuned all of the reading material I had gathered and went home, my paper was due in the morning and I was totally lost in thought about the topic that I had chosen.

The next day I presented my essay, placed my photo on the board and went back to my seat. At lunch time we were all gathered around the board looking at the photos everyone had gathered. Quite a few of my buddies were looking at mine with envy, one of them mentioned, "wow, he is wearing an eye patch!" I answered, "Really, I didn't even notice", and went outside to play.

I really had found my personal hero and to me, he was not even wearing that patch anymore.