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Minds Without Borders

A thoughtful look at how culture, society, politics, media and economics affect us all.

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I Walked Among Giants

Stories of everyday heroism and love

7 min readJan 26, 2023

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There is an old saying that you shouldn’t meet your heroes. The reasoning behind that, of course, is that we tend to put our heroes on pedestals and hold them to an imaginary standard they can never uphold in real life.

The stories that follow about not about heroes that we read about in history books, whose achievements are elevated and glorified with statues and memorials.

They are not about the big names we learn in school — those most people would recognize. Instead, what follows are stories of everyday heroism, the kind most of us witness at one time or another. They are the kind of heroes we do meet if we are lucky.

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The Mechanic

One winter evening I went out for dinner with my parents when I was home from college on Christmas break. It was a blustery night with the air temperature a few degrees below zero, and the wind chill in double digits below zero.

It was not the kind of night most people would go out in.

Minds Without Borders
Minds Without Borders

Published in Minds Without Borders

A thoughtful look at how culture, society, politics, media and economics affect us all.

John Egelkrout
John Egelkrout

Written by John Egelkrout

I am a sanity-curious former teacher who writes about social issues, memoirs, and other topics. Follow me on Substack at

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