“Footnote: the [logs] are in your favor.”

I think Charlotte makes an excellent point, probably because it is exactly what I was thinking while reading the testaments of long since graduated and established UT alum. The point being, as I interpreted it at least, that a role model is someone (or some thing or some place or some idea) who has made a personal connection with you.
I always had difficulty choosing a role model to write about for elementary school essays, because “I could never personally identify with any of these people in such a way that I would strive to emulate them” (Margaret Clemons). The reason I have always trouble with these assignments, I now realize, is because a role model is not something that one can just “choose”.
For a role model or mentor situation to occur, two things must coincide: a person with some admirable characteristic(s) (the Teacher) must become involved somehow with another person (the Student) at some crucial time in his or her life.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with claiming that some cliché elementary-school-essay-assignment regular like Abe or M.L.K. Jr. is a role model. However, there is a difference between one of these guys being a role model for society and being the kind of “role model” described in the readings. True, “Honest Abe” is a person to be emulated, but he will never “make an indelible impression on us” like the one made on Margaret Cousins by Dr. Parlin in the 1920’s (942). The reason that it is so often a teacher who becomes the subject of this kind of assignment has just as much to do with the characteristics of a good teacher—wise, cultured, articulate, engaging, honest—as it does with characteristics of a good student—inquisitive, naïve, frustrated, determined, and eager to learn.
After saying all of this, my role model is Abraham Lincoln…or rather a product of his legendary beginnings (quite literally a product). My role model is a set of Lincoln Logs I had when I was a kid. To just name a few of the many admirable characteristics of Lincoln Logs: “[They] never pulled rank…always seemed relaxed and friendly…never afraid of a new idea….[They] climbed on no bandwagons. [They] neither sought nor avoided confrontations with higher authorities. [They] were simply there, like a block of granite.” (Chad Oliver, 956)
This particular set of Lincoln Logs lived in a tall closet in the basement of my grandparents’ home in the microcosm of Tulia, Texas. I had no friends there, no entertainment, no creative outlet except for my own imagination. It is times like these, times of isolation, that, given the right resources, allow for uninterrupted time to think and reflect—the two best catalysts for creativity and mental progress. The right resources, in my case, were Lincoln Logs. Now, ten years and many moments of uncertainty later, is it no wonder that I seem to have decided on spending the rest of my life in the field of architecture?