Hillary’s small footsteps left huge imprint

Article online since January 13th 2008 and was viewed 1232 times
I’ve been writing this web log—which is the last time I’ll refer to the now archaic name for a blog—for about a week and a half, and it has surprised me that people have discovered it at all. Sometimes I think that’s what’s most amazing about the Web, that there are so many discoveries to be made.
I was thinking this morning about discoveries, a train of thought occasioned by reading another story of Sir Edmund Hillary www.nzedge.com , the man who was first to climb Mount Everest www.mnteverest.net .
He made his ascent without advantage of today’s specialized equipment, but he had something more important: the simply stated goal to climb the world’s highest mountain.
Should anyone bother to ask for a reason, “Because it’s there” will usually suffice.
Hillary’s name was indelibly engraved on the minds of a generation of boys enthralled by his accomplishment in 1953—and somewhat saddened that the mountain hadn’t waited for them to conquer.
Finding new and strange ‘mountains’ to climb still fascinates us, but we have to make do—most of us—with figurative challenges. (Let me say that raising teenagers must be an Everest for most of us.)
Yet every year, someone dreams up a new “amazing feat” to make the Guinness Book of World Records www.guinnessworldrecords.com For
Example—‘the heaviest weight dangled from a swallowed sword’ www.guinnessworldrecords.com .
Guinness reports that Australian Matthew Henshaw swallowed a sword almost 16 inches long and then held a sack of potatoes weighing 44 pounds attached to the handle of the sword for five seconds. That marvelous feat took place April 16, 2005.
I sound a little flippant. Honestly, I’m pretty sure I would have been impressed had I been there to watch Henshaw. Besides, his sword probably would have come in handy afterwards to peel the spuds and make chowder www.cooks.com .
I imagine climbing mountains probably isn’t more difficult than learning to swallow a sword. After all, it’s only the geological equivalent of climbing a ladder.
But I think Hillary and his Sherpa companion Tenzing entered the 20th century’s consciousness as the last of the heroes from a ‘golden age’. Explorers like Henry Stanley and Dr. David Livingston www.eyewitnesstohistory.com , flyers like Lindbergh www.charleslindbergh.com and Earhart www.ameliaearhart.com , and scientific giants like Einstein were from that heroic mold—men and women who had goals achievable by individuals.
The grand goals in the late 20th century—like reaching the moon—were committee jobs. That’s not bad, necessarily. The cure for cancer, provided it is ever found likely will be a group effort. Certainly it will be built on the shoulders of those who went before. Things usually do happen that way, even for those heroes of yesterday. They were following in footsteps others had left and benefited from their efforts.
Sometimes, just doing things in small steps leads to surprising results.