Like Janus, the god with two faces, I find myself at this dramatic turning point in history looking forward to the 2000s and backward over the 1900s.

Surveying the past century, I here identify a few of the public figures who have had a notable impact on my life and times. In doing so, I have arbitrarily chosen three prominent people in each of six categories.

In the political sphere, Franklin D. Roosevelt looms largest. He was the first president I was conscious of. As a boy, I thought he would always be my president, just as for me as a Catholic, Pius XII would always be my pope.

Later Harry Truman emerged to take a place the national consciousness and mine. I remember listening to him the first time he spoke to the nation. He sounded to me like a hick, and I won-dered how he could ever lead us the way his predecessor had done.

And third among American political figures, John F. Kennedy stands out. Though I now realize that historians may not rate him highly, still the new spirit he brought to Washington and the country at large, featuring respect for intellect and culture, buoyed up my morale.

In another sphere, spirituality, the three Americans who have marked my life most are Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, and Martin Luther King. All of them people of deep faith, they wrote and acted so as to support and extend that faith in me and my community. All of them had human defects but their concern for justice, peace, and poor people place them high in my temple of spiritual heroes.

As a boy I used to frequent movie theaters and the double features they offered. Looking back, I conjure up three stars who have left strong memories in me: Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Cagney, and Bette Davis.

I loved the hard-bitten gangster films that the first two starred in; the love stories of Bette Davis tended to bore me but left a strong impression of what screen acting could be.

In literature, three writers stand out for me: Thomas Wolfe, author of Look Homeward Angel, Sigrid Undset for her great trilogy Kristin Lavransdatter, and Walker Percy.

Wolfe’s autobiographical novel, published posthumously in 1940, is the kind of book you had to read in adolescence to feel its full impact.

Something similar can be said of Undset’s three volumes. With their stirring stories of religious and sexual passion, they ex-tended the narrow boundaries of my thinking and feeling as a teenager.

Walker Percy, in novels such as Love In the Ruins, brought a sophisticated and somewhat pessimistic Catholic sensibility to the world with which I strongly identified.

As a life-long sports fan, I have rooted for Boston major league teams through times of both glory and slump. Among the many athletic heroes who occupy a prominent place in my psyche are Ted Williams, Bob Cousy, and Bobby Orr.

Though he sometimes made it hard to like him, Ted Williams remains the consummate artist of the perfect swing.

Cousy first showed how entertaining and exciting it could be to perform sleight-of-hand on the basketball court, and Orr revolutionized hockey by becoming a big-time scorer as a dashing defenseman.

Finally, 20th century America will be remembered by social historians for the rise of the elder liberation movement. That leads me to cite three leaders among the many who led the way toward asserting the rights of older Americans.

Senator Claude Pepper in his own old age stood out as a champion of public policy recognizing both the needs and the contributions of elders.

Ethel Percy Andrus founded the now giant advocacy organization AARP (known, as of recent months, by these initials alone) that enrolls Americans middle-aged and older for rights and benefits.

And Maggie Kuhn, founder of the Gray Panthers, an organization never large in numbers or resources, but an influence for change in the way older people are regarded in this country. Maggie, living into her nineties, was a dynamic figure who insisted that Americans, old and young, should advocate together for basic social change.

So this is my list of twentieth century threesomes enshrined in my personal hall of fame. You will quite reasonably argue with my choices and omissions. I have left out whole areas of importance and, even within the categories chosen I have ignored many who helped change America.

Perhaps the best way for you to retaliate is to make your own list. It’s fun doing so and reviewing candidates can stimulate your interior life. I fully expect that your selections will differ from mine dramatically. If you wish to share your memories with me, you will find me an appreciative reader.

And, of course, this exercise raises the question of who will be the people of the new millennium most influential in our lives and in those following us.

Richard Griffin