Goodbye, spoiled athletes. So long, millionaire dot.commers. Good riddance, Hollywood celebrities and Alan Alda clones. After Sept. 11, America has new heroes. Manly men are making a comeback. There are stories everywhere these days about the new status of rugged, heroic men such as firefighters, police officers, paramedics, construction workers and civilian heroes like those who gave their lives taking back Flight 93 from hijackers over Pennsylvania.

        The firefighters at Cincinnati's 9th and Broadway station laugh and blush when I ask how they like being labeled “America's new hunks.” But for sure they've noticed a new regard and respect from the public.

        When Cincinnati's firefighters took to the streets during rush hour to collect donations for New York's firefighter families, they were amazed at the enthusiastic response. Businessmen in three-piece suits pulled over to write checks. Strangers now strike up conversations in elevators and people of all ages give the firefighters a “thumbs up” sign on the street. They got a standing ovation recently at a neighborhood council meeting and people continue to drop off homemade cookies and pies at firehouses. At Halloween last month, kids' demands for police, fire and medical costumes rivaled goblin gear.

        It's not just firemen. The new heroes also include police officers, paramedics, postal workers, construction workers and soldiers. This includes equally brave and dedicated women who do these jobs, but the majority still are men — masculine men. The kind of men author/speechwriter Peggy Noonan described in The Wall Street Journal recently as the men “who push things and pull things and haul things and build things, men who charge up the stairs in a hundred pounds of gear and tell everyone else where to go to be safe.”

        Their style is back in style. “Welcome back, Duke,” Ms. Noonan says of these new John Waynes.

        There's renewed admiration, too, for the military. Before Sept. 11, they were tolerated. Now they're heroes, even before going to battle. A 20-something National Guardsman assigned to airport security duty at our airport told me, “I'm kinda stunned at the respect. Even young people walk up, shake my hand and say thanks for what you're doing.”

        Phone queries are “way up” at several local military recruiting offices. “Since Sept. 11, we're getting new interest, new respect and top-of-the-line recruits,” said a Navy officer.

        Mail carriers and postal workers, unaccustomed to public respect, are getting it now. Loveland publicly honored its neighborhood postal workers recently with a proclamation thanking them “for keeping our mail going through in our country.”

        Some attribute the hero shift to simple nostalgia for simpler times. I think it's more. We're rewriting the test for the good guys, redefining what we mean by strong men and women. Bill Clinton and our self-indulgent mindset seem long ago. Our regard now goes to men who live in the real world, where columnist Suzanne Fields says “words can't take the place of deeds and victims are not abstractions of ideology, but flesh and blood vulnerable” to evil-doers.

        Feminists should hold their fire. We're not talking about he-man brutes. Let's call them gladiators with grit and heart. We saw those New York rescuers, and even the abrasive Rudy Giuliani, cry for each other. Someone pointed out that warriors can be sad and also brave.

        So what changed our attitude about heroes? I asked several Cincinnati firefighters.

        “I'm not sure,” said Capt. Cedric Robinson. “Maybe, with all the cameras and news coverage, people saw for the first time exactly what we do every day, which is more than just put out fires.”

        Lt. Joe Rose offers: "People's priorities changed on Sept. 11. They're now looking at the world through different glasses. They have a greater appreciation of their families and friends, and of people who directly touch and affect their lives. The rock stars and athlete idols don't seem relevant anymore because they have no real connection to their families and everyday lives. Firemen, policemen, paramedics — we all do. People see we're on the same living plain they're on, unlike celebrities.”

        There's human kinship and comfort in that, plus a new appreciation of ordinary men and women who willingly put themselves in peril to go to the aid of strangers day in and day out.

        “It's something you are, not something you do,” firefighter/paramedic Teri Hyre of the Lebanon Fire Division told a community newspaper.

        That's it — a generosity of spirit, available to all of us in our worst times. It represents the best in Americans. Sept. 11 brought many of these good men and women back into the cultural spotlight. They're finally getting the appreciation due them.

        There's something else, too. The “rebirth of the manly man” is taking some of the starch out of our angst over gender stereotyping. When I phoned a local office of the Marines this week and waited “on hold” to speak to an official, I expected mushy Musak or marching tunes to fill my ears.

        Instead, I got the toe-tapping twang of Shania Twain, belting out “Any Man of Mine . . . he's gotta be a heartbeakin', fine-treatin', breathtakin', earthquakin' kind.” Yeah, yeah. It was so unexpectedly “incorrect” and gritty that you had to laugh.

        Contact Linda Cagnetti at 768-8527; fax-768-8610; e-mail: lcagnetti@enquirer.com. Cincinnati.Com keyword: Cagnetti.
       

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