I is for Indiana Jones

Last week for the letter ���H,��� I talked about Heroes. This week I���m actually talking about one more specific hero: Indiana Jones. And I���m doing this mostly because of Harrison Ford���s Indy-esque escape from death earlier this week in his small plane, partly because Indiana Jones has been a romantic hero to me for most of my adult life. Iconic���another ���I��� word.

I loved the very first movie���Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana Jones was a true romantic hero in a wonderful action-adventure romance. The story arc is perfect, set up Indiana as leading a double life, mild mannered archeology professor and adventurer in search of treasure. Then he get re-involved with his long lost love and manages to save her time after time throughout the rest of the movie. I fell in love with the hard-hitting, passionate, extremely intelligent Indiana from the moment he stalks onto the screen. Played to perfection by Harrison Ford in a somewhat different type of role from his also romantic, also excellently portrayed space counterpart Han Solo.

And that���s why I was not completely surprised when Mr. Ford became a hero in real life by keeping his cool in a life and death emergency on March 5, landing his failing plane on a golf course, mere yards from houses that ring the course and ensuring that no one but himself got hurt. The distress call that I listened to showed him very calm and cool-headed as he told them he was going down. He sustained non-life threatening but severe injuries (rather Indiana Jones like as well) and is expected to make a full recovery. Thank God.

I am certainly very happy that in this case life imitated art and Indy came through with only minor wounds. Even though he may never play this iconic role again, I���m still relieved that ���Indiana Jones��� will still be out there somewhere, just a heartbeat away from another adventure. Carry on, Mr. Ford.

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