t‘ONG On The Bookshelf FINE CHINESE DINING 9rwite,s; Tau; %, 'A wonderful adventure in fine dining" — Danny Raskin Featuring Gourmet Oriental Cuisine Excellent Lunch and Dinner Selections 7 Days a Week I I a.m.- Midnight Complete Menu Carryout • Gift Certificates Available • We Cater To Private Parties `Confessions Of A Hero-Worshiper' Stephen Dubner examines what it means to need a hero, and what it means to be one. SANDEE BRAWARS KY Special to the Jewish News 27925 Orchard Lake Road, north of 12 Mile • Farmington Hills 248.489.2280 679180 Just North of Maple across from Meijers 6343 Haggarty Road West Bloomfield, Ml 48322 248.699.7400 S tephen Dubner dates his foot- ball obsession back to 1972. He was 9: That was the year he got a football for Christmas, and it was the year of the Immaculate Reception — an awesome catch and touchdown scored by Franco Harris of the Pittsburgh Steelers, in the last moments of a game that would send the team to the Super Bowl. Dubner was rapturous, watching it live on a black-and-white television set in his family's house in upstate New York. Just about a year later, his father died, and that only deepened his infat- uation with Harris and his sense that, CONFESSIONS OF' A HERO-WORSHIPER STEPHEN d . DUBNER MEDITERRANEAN MARKET Direct from Israel: olives, chocolate, cheeses, salads. jams. cof ee, teas, nuts and more! 248.538.9552 , from beneath his helmet, the running back was watching out for him. You don't have to love football to be enchanted with Dubner's latest book, Confessions of a Hero Worshipper COLD CUT TRAY For $6.75 per person (10 or more people) 7/18 2003 58 Includes: 4 meats, 2 cheeses, coleslaw, potato salad, garnish & pickles. 21754 W. 11 MILE RD. • HARVARD ROW • 248-352-4940 FAX: 352-9393 (Morrow; $24.95). The memoir is not quite a sequel to his first book, Turbulent Souls, his account of being raised in a large Catholic family, unrav- eling the story of his parents' journey from Judaism to Catholicism before they married, and his own journey back to Judaism. In Confessions of a Hero Worshiper, the author, who called himself Franco Dubner when he was a kid, examines his own infatuation with Harris and looks more generally at the nature of heroes and heroism. It's a funny, know- ing and tender book that's ultimately about love and loss, about understand- ing and growth. Franco Harris was the son of an Italian mother and an African- American father; he's described as hav- ing caramel skin and Roman features, and is seen as more principled, private and humble than most ballplayers. When asked, in an interview in his Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan, about what drew him to Harris, Dubner says, "I never felt like I chose him, at least consciously. I chose him in the way you choose to fall in love. It just kind of happens." He did sense a kinship, that Harris' mixed-race status made him a bit of an outsider, as did Dubner's own crypto- Jewish background. Dubner admired his hero from afar, channeling his presence to fill a hole left by the death of his father. For many years, he had a recurring dream about his hero visiting him at home. About 20 years after those dreams and obsessions faded, he happened upon Harris' face on the cover of Black Enterprise magazine; the glimpse of his former hero reawakened many feelings as well as great curiosity, which landed him in the Pittsburgh airport, finally meeting Harris face-to-face. At lunch, he told Harris that he wanted to write a book about heroes and hero worship that would tell both of their stories. Harris was polite but probably not very interested. For months, he dodged the author's attempts to set up addi- tional meetings. Many people would have read Harris' behavior as disinterest even though his words were always kind, but Dubner persisted, and he recounts his misadventures. Originally, he and his publisher thought the book would be a kind of Fridays with Franco, sharing the guy's wisdom. "I didn't expect to extract a philosophy, although I did expect to connect with him in a way that ulti- mately proved non-existent," says Dubner.