Today is the 60th anniversary of the first known successful assent to the summit of Mt. Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay. The reason why this date is important is my birthday falls on this day. My father, not a mountain climber himself but an avid reader, remembered the two events coinciding.
My father was also pleased the day I was born, because he looked out a window from the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and saw William Penn’s statue. What William Penn and I have in common I am not sure, but that is what my father saw.
I am not a mountain climber, but did climb Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. They can make you do a lot of things in summer camp, you might never do on your own.
Well, there you have it. To me, Norgay and Hillary are heroes, but so are the many who tried before and after them and almost made it or succeeded.
Octopus Grabbus' Log 