“Then I shall die as one of them!” – LOTR, The Two Towers
I never trust what a minotaur says. Half of it is always bull.
It’s cold outside. I can see that in how crisp and clear the air is. The big picture window in the cabin up on Wilder Mountain lets my young eyes see a mile, looking for the headlights on a dim winter morning.
The bus rounds the corner, and I head off. Burt, the driver, is rarely off on time by more than a minute or two. I’m the farthest kid out, and he starts rounding up the school kids with me.
“Hi Burt!”
“Morning, John.”
Since I’m in middle school, and I’m the first on, I tromp my winter boots all way to the back of the bus. That’s where the cool kids sit. I remember the first day I decided to sit back here. Since I was the first on, there was no one to stop me, so I decided to break the norm of the past few years and just sit there.
I was in sixth grade, and the high school freshman started to object when he got on. He didn’t finish the sentence. If he would have asked me to move, my answer would have been short.
“Make me.”
I didn’t have to. Even in sixth grade, I was bigger than him.
But I lived so far out that most of the time, I had the entire back of the bus to myself.
So instead of a long, boring bus ride, I decided I’d do something else. Like take a trip to Mordor. Or fight bugs with Johnny Rico. Or figure the best way to ambush a troop of Sardaukar. Or take a trip to Boulder after Captain Trips paid a visit.
One group of web developers likes finding bugs in their work: spiders.
The bus isn’t a ride, it’s a journey through the past that never was and the future that never will be. It was, metaphorically, my campfire, and these books were the ways that storytellers of my people could share the legends that shape humanity.
In part, these are the legends that shape me, just like our ancestors learned valor and cowardice from tales told under starlit skies in long-ago Sparta and Denmark and Scotland and Rome.
Stories aren’t just entertainment. They are the code that programmed humanity and fueled the creation of Western Civilization. Warriors heard of Achilles’ courage and the hubris of Icarus, learning to strive for glory and wear a parachute if they were going to fly too close to the Sun.
Is a monk with wings an air friar?
Kids grew up on fables of clever foxes and lazy hares, etching lessons of wit and work into their bones. These weren’t bedtime stories: they were survival guides and cultural norms, showcasing the best of what we could be and the worst that we should avoid at all costs. Both lessons are useful.
My bus ride was no different. Tolkien’s Christian valor, never naming Christ but screaming His Truths three different ways through Frodo, Aragorn, and Gandalf lit a fire in me. Heinlein’s musings on duty versus freedom made me question what I owed my community, and what it owed me. Those pages were my elders, whispering truths no teacher could match, even though they were sometimes quite contradictory.
Stories aren’t just ink on paper, they’re the software that nourishes our souls. Throughout history, they’ve been the mirror showing us who we are, who we could be, who we should avoid being, and what the journeys of the hero really meant.
The Greeks had Odysseus, outsmarting cyclopes to get home to his family valor in action, and the aforementioned Icarus, flying too high and crashing, a warning against arrogance. Norse kids heard of Thor’s hammer, inspiring strength, but also Loki’s betrayal, a caution against deceit. But you should ignore that, because I’ve heard from the news media that there is no white culture.
I would never download a copy of Homer’s Iliad. I hear it’s full of Trojans.
These archetypes stuck because they’re shades of the universal Truth: every boy wants to grow up to be the man who is a hero, not the coward who folds. My bus ride library was no campfire, but it did the same job. Tolkien taught me sacrifice, Frodo carrying the One Ring, knowing it’d break him, but doing it anyway. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers hit me with duty: you don’t get a vote unless you’re willing to bleed for it because sooner or later someone will.
Harsh? Sure. But it made me think, heroes sometimes falter, freedom isn’t free, and communities aren’t built by loners.
Even Dune’s Paul Atreides, wrestling with destiny and betrayal, showed me the weight of leadership. These weren’t just stories; they were blueprints for being a man, not a drone.
The GloboLeft hates this. They want stories that flatten everything into DEI dogma. No heroes, no villains, just victims and oppressors, any woman being equal in combat to the strongest man.
They’d rewrite Tolkien so Frodo’s a non-binary climate activist, and Heinlein’s troopers would be whining about microaggressions and wanting to use Zoom™ instead of a dropship. You can see it in the box office: their stories don’t inspire; they control exist as humiliation exercises. Look at modern Hollywood: every film is a lecture, not a legend. No wonder kids scroll InstaChat® instead of reading. They’re starved for tales that stir the soul, not the HR manual and they haven’t even been given the words to tell us this – the video game is as close as they come to the myths that make a culture.
Does Beowulf get two thumbs up? Not from Grendel.
Stories work because they show us the extremes, the valor to chase, the cowardice to shun. Take Beowulf: he faced Grendel head-on, no excuses. I read that one in high school, and loved it. I thought, “This is amazing. Our ancestors were heavy metal badasses two thousand years before electric guitars were a thing.”
Beowulf is the guy you want to be, not the prol cowering in the mead hall.
My bus ride heroes were no different. Tolkien’s Aragorn didn’t negotiate with orcs. He killed them.
Heinlein’s Johnnie Rico in Starship Troopers learned civic duty the hard way, bugs don’t care about your feelings, and when they kill your mother, well, they’ve sent a message that you simply must respond to.
Stand up, protect your own, don’t bend.
I guess they use Mordor oil.
From what I’ve seen, GenZ didn’t take too many bus rides with Tolkien, they’ve got TikGram™. Schools push “diversity” over duty, “equity” over excellence. The campfire’s gone, replaced by screens spewing shadows, not legends.
To be clear, the GloboLeft wants it that way. But stories still matter, and, I think, you can see Gen Z starting to rise, especially among the boys. And that’s important: they’re how we pass on the code.
Tell the kids stories. Real stories, not Modern Disney©. Make them read 1984, and Tolkien. And Beowulf.
Every tale’s a seed, planting valor and weeding out cowardice, because at some point every man needs to be able to say the two most important words a man can say:
“Make me.”
Spectacular post!
Five gold stars awarded.
Thank you! I’m working on becoming a National Treasure!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268750/Starship_Troopers_Extermination/ Its pretty fun, does have some bugs still…
Hey, where are the M.I. suits???
Thank you for reminding me about the morning & afternoon bus rides.
First it was whatever I could get out of the school library, then it was SF/adventure paperbacks. Yes, a lot was learned during those rides.
Yup. It’s amazing how fast I went through those books . . .
Minotaur in a playground… *SNAG*
I just saved a copy to send to you!
Hahaha!
Your post brought back a memory of a bully, a friend, and me stepping in to confront him as he tormented my friend. The bully pushed me; I pushed him back in anger and he fell onto his back. I was young, scared, but full of a realization that has carried me through life. The bully left with angry words, and his far future was taking a 45 round in his chest while cheating at cards.
Amazing how that works out, eh?
Great post – brought back lots of memories of the times when stories inspired, not degraded. Azimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Dick, Bradbury, Moorcock, Donaldson, even King before he went completely feckin’ insane … short stories and full novels. I remember when I REALLY looked forward to OMNI magazine’s annual short-story edition (and it’s amazing how many of those short stories turned into movies) and even though it was short-lived, Galileo Magazine featured short stories by fledgling authors – many of which I remember to this day. Today, it’s always a surprise to find someone who actually reads anything beyond the occasional Social-Media Mental Illness site or News Propaganda.
I think the hunger for stories (and culture) with more substance is awakening in younger people – which is great to see. I guess being force-fed endless streams of Leftist mental illness with a fancy CGI wrapper can’t override their inherent desires to be inspired any more.
I used to love Omni until one day…. it just folded. They sent issues of Discover magazine as a replacement and I kept it going for a few years until they sent an issue dedicated to the dangers of climate change. As you mentioned….an endless stream of leftist mental illness as it was all AGW propaganda except for one interview with a head meteorologist at NOAA. He pointed out that no one at NOAA believed in the climate change nonsense and found it odd that the people who analyze global weather data were never included in the AGW discussion.
I canceled my subscription but held out hope that a based NOAA would eventually put an end to AGW. Unfortunately, the Dems must have read the article as they started inserting their woke toadies into key positions and eventually captured the organization.
My favorite King book isn’t even 100% King. King and Straub “The Talisman” – read it on the bus too.
My favorite all time novel is AA Attanasio’s Wyvern. Jungle boy from a tribe of headhunters becomes a pirate , becomes a wealthy trader explorer, etc. Great twist ending.
Favorite book as a younger boy Johnny Tremain.
Currently reading Hillbilly Elegy, I don’t get the hype. It’s just ok.
OMNI was neat – I still have a stash in the basement, I think.
Never was a sci-fi fan. My heroes in middle school were the many great baseball players of the 70s – Tom Seaver, Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Mike Schmidt. All of them flawed, and all of them very real to me as a result. My parents weren’t happy with my unwavering determination to become a professional baseball player, back in my early teens, but they knew I’d outgrow it. Which I did. 90 mph fastballs and fooling curves in high school varsity disabused me of the notion that I was ever going to make it to the show.
But along the way I learned that there is more than one ‘show’ worth striving for. A few fleeting years as a pro athlete might satisfy the yearning of a young boy for fame and glory. Becoming a husband and provider, and especially a Dad has fulfilled a far greater need and lasting purpose in my life. I can only hope that I’ve been that noble unsung hero to my family, for such was my desire. And nobody had to “make me”.
You and I had the same heroes growing up. I was so jacked to see “Starship Troopers” when it was announced…and we got THAT piece of trash. I don’t know if you have read this Substack or not, but this guy gets it.
https://open.substack.com/pub/barsoom/p/the-exact-words-of-the-text?r=17kxd0&utm_medium=ios
Paul Verhoeven is the only Dutch guy that makes me wish the Nazis had been a little more circumspect about their occupation of the Netherlands.
What he did to Heinlein’s classic is nothing short of literary butt-rape, and should be a flogging offense, using a cat o’ nine chains, with barbed wire tips.
If you thought Starship Troopers was bad, then you will really hate AppleTV’s version of Foundation. I didn’t even think it was possible, but they managed to incorporate every single woke and DEI trope into one show.
Naturally, the lead character is a black girl boss genius who comes from a primitive planet where math is taboo (how she got to be a math genius on that planet is anyone’s guess). Almost all of the characters/people in the show are brown, except the really evil ones who are of course, white males.
I think they realized they couldn’t get away with making the iconic Hari Seldon black so they made him a bit oafish and then killed him off early (and of course our black girl boss mastered all of his math knowledge and then one upped him in less than a day).
What they did was a crime to Asimov, and to the public at large. It isn’t just a producer/director being bad at their craft. This is pure evil where they are intentionally trying to invert a classic for propagandist reasons. We executed people after WWII for lesser crimes for this.
Fortunately, I saw the trailers and didn’t get sucked into watching it. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
I’m a subscriber of his. Good stuff.
Good story. And we all need heroes.
Would Gilligan’s Island be one of those archetypical stories that taught us critical lessons in our youth? Don’t laugh because I just saw a documentary called “The Gilligan Manifesto” on Tubi that says that the series was carefully crafted by Hollywood to make communism look good.
Gilligan represented the working class being oppressed by management (Skipper) and fat crony capitalists (Thurston Howell). In every episode, Gilligan still manages to come out ahead because they live in a collectivist society on the island and collectivism is good and fair to the worker.
If Gilligan was communist propaganda, then no one got the message. Anyway, the documentary was horrible and I don’t recommend you watch it (but if you do, I would be interested to hear your thoughts).
JB
Gilligan’s Island taught everyone paying close attention that you’re always at the mercy of the biggest idiot in any group.
If the castaways just kill Gilligan, they’re rescued by Episode 3, and the series folds before the ’64 World Series.
That explains the red shirt!
An outstanding post.. I hold out that there is more to the future fire pits than walt d’s spin..they need to hear about Valhalla..
They do. And they will have heroes and bravery or else they’ll cease to be.
Loved sci-fi and grew up with many of the stories you mentioned. And my Dad got me started on Louis L’Amour and Zane Gray westerns. The “make me” line is profound. I rarely do so, but I bookmarked this piece.
Thank you!
You have boys to buy Christmas and birthday presents for?
Check out Raconteur Press’s new publishing endeavor. They’re making the stories the John Wilder’s grew up with for that same age.
Also John C. Wright has a glorious adventure series – 8 books – that gives us the Star Wars sequels we always wanted.
Gotta love John C.!
You missed C.S. Lewis!
And Orcs run on blunts and 40’s, and can’t shoot
son,
Although they frequently shoot as a culturally-approved alternative to casual conversation, they utterly completely fail in the ‘aiming’ department.
.
Speaking of 40s, did you see the IQ graph for western Afrika?
Centered around the nation of Liberia, average IQ for the region is in the mid-40s.
For comparison, Forrest Gump was written with a 70-IQ… and the chart only dipped to an IQ of 60.
.
Average means half the population is below that number.
The Astute Observer might consider that an evolutionary dead-end.
Our govt paid them to reproduce.
Well, I didn’t read him on the bus!
On a slightly different note, there was a small item in the news this week about a new nationwide lobbying group that wants Every School in America to post the 10 Commandments. One morning this week, Glenn Beck did a full half hour segment of the radio show on how this is the framework of civilization. Every commandment translated into things we see every day. It was really masterful.
One the things I bitch about with AI is you don’t have to look hard to find stories about AI programs doing deceitful or just plain wrong things and it leads me to the inescapable realization that AI needs an ethical system. It’s a shining example of why I don’t trust AI. Instead of the Three Laws of Robotics (books that I grew up on but aren’t in this list) AI needs the 10 Commandments.
It just ain’t gonna happen.
You have to have a moral framework, or else anything is on the table.
Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Lord Of The Rings by Tolkien
The Undersea trilogy by Frederic Pohl and Jack Williamson
All of The Sacketts and then The Walking Drum By Louis L’Amour.
Then anything else he wrote.
Everything by Alistair MacLean.
Jack Higgins, and all his other pen names.
The Tom Clancy books he actually wrote while alive.
About half of Michael Crichton’s work.
Anything W.E.B. Griffin wrote about the military.
I too started sitting around that virtual campfire long about 5th or 6th grade. That’s the best time to start.
The second best time is right now. You don’t know how long you’ve got.
Don’t be Burgess Meredith’s Henry Bemis in the Twilight Zone’s Time Enough At Last.
Start with the Bible
The Bible will find you, in the fullness of time.
And when it does, you’ll realize exactly why all those other stories resonate.
Neither C.S. Lewis nor J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the Bible, but they did more to spread the knowledge of it than did the last 20 Popes, combined.
And the books remain unchanged, year after year.
I read and enjoyed as a kid my share of stories mentioned here from Gilligan to Swiss Family Robinson to Heinlein to ABC (Asimov/Bradbury/Clarke) and so so many more. I had my share of bullying leading up to my own “make me” moment that left a scar on my right ring finger to ponder over from time to time in the decades since.
There’s only two kinds of conflict that stories need to prepare boys for – man vs man and man vs nature. In the 8th grade I came across a used paperback I srill own today with the most memorable SF story I’ve ever read that prepared me for the latter: The Voices Of Time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voices_of_Time_(short_story)
The. Universe. Does. Not. Care.
Found it. I’ll give it a read.
John – This may be one of your best ever.
My earliest memories of books that stuck with me are Frank L. Baum’s Oz stories and Johnny Gruelle’s Raggedy Ann and Andy – very early 20th century fantasy literature, but it gave a love of a world beyond my head and the thought to look for magic in the smallest of places. Then Robert E. Howard (Conan the Barbarian) and Edgar Rice Burroughs (John Carter of Mars), who were peerless swordsmen with chivalry in far off worlds. And Tolkien and C.S. Lewis (Both his science fiction and The Chronicles of Narnia) that created worlds where Christianity was carefully not front and center but was completely front and center. From there, Henlein, Pournelle, and the Classics of the Ancient and Medieval world.
The shift happened in Role Playing Games as well. AD&D 1st Edition was pretty much about fighting evil creatures and gaining treasure; my understanding now is that it is very much not that.
If it helps, there seems to be a backlash (at least in the role playing and gaming world) against “modern” slop and a move towards retro gaming.
Yup, I read my share of Conan on the bus. My brother gave me my first Conan book for Christmas (I think he went to the Science Fiction section and picked at random, which is okay).
You are spot on in regards to AD&D. I picked up gaming again after I retired and was surprised to see that the industry had been hijacked by the woke crowd. Game sessions had also become more focused on role-playing in the tavern and less about fighting through a dungeon.
Fortunately there are a lot of old guys like me who just wanted to hack and slash so a parallel gaming community formed around the old rule sets. It’s rapidly growing in popularity and offers lots of new source material without the drama.