Another hero was Tom Swift in the books. What he stood for the freedom the scientific knowledge and being and engineer gave him the ability to invent solutions to problems. He's always been a hero to me. I buy old Tom Swift books now and read them to my own children.
I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later and thus we don't have complete emotions about the present only about the past.
