Series Listing: Guides

This a list of posts in my series about people who have influenced my life in some way, whom I refer to as “guides.”  From the intro:

But the point is, these are the people who were my guideposts, my compasses, whether from exerting a strong magnetic force on me, or just from jerking a thumb over their shoulder and indicating a better road.  Both are important.  Both have had significant impacts on my life.  Both make interesting stories, and that’s what it’s really all about.

This series is an ongoing one, meaning it will never be truly “finished.”  I sincerely doubt I’m ever going to run out of people who’ve influenced my life in one way or another.  I also do these very infrequently: basically whenever I’m reminded of a particular person from my past.  So be prepared for long gaps in between installments.

• Those I Owe (introduction)
• Bernice Pierce
• Willie Vadnais
• Marion Burden
• Benny Millares

Guides: Benny Millares

[This is one post in a series about people who have had a great impact on my life.  You may wish to read the introduction to the series.]

I moved to southern California in 2007.  While The Mother had lived in this area before, I was in a strange new place where I knew no one and recognized nothing.  Little things were different: when I ordered chow mein I got chop suey, and when I referred to interstates by their numbers alone, I got funny looks from the natives for leaving off the definite article.  And of course I was starting a new job where I knew no one except the few people I’d met during my interview.

I started on the 2nd day of July (because the 1st was a Sunday).  Another person started on the same day as I did—someone who had also migrated from the East Coast, who also had long hair and a scruffy beard, whose name differed from mine by a single vowel and one doubled consonant.  Oh, he was significantly taller and far more Cuban than I, but we were doomed to be confused with each other for my entire six-year tenure there.  This was how I met Benny Millares.

Independence Day was during our first week of work.  Both of us had left our families back on the East Coast to work on the move, so we were both alone in corporate housing.  Had it been up to me, I probably just would have sat at home and maybe watched some fireworks on televsion.  But Benny convinced me we should go out.  We drove around the Hollywood Hills, window-shopped the ritzy houses in Bel Air, cruised up and down the Sunset Strip for a while.  We ended up in Venice Beach, just wandering around, stopping to chat with random strangers, watching fireworks when we could get to a place we could see them.  I’d like to say this is the sort of thing I’d done in my twenties, but the honest truth is I was never the sort to do that sort of thing on my own.  Oh, I’d tag along if my friends suggested it, but I was never the instigator.  This incident, on my third day of knowing him, became a metaphor for our relationship: he constantly forces me out of my comfort zone, pushes me to try new things, think outside the box, do more, be better.

When I ran my own business, I was usually the thinker and my employees were the doers.  But I could never think big enough to have that relationship with Benny.  It was always he who had the grand ideas and I who followed along, implementing as hard as I could and trying to keep up.  This was one of many role reversals we went through at work: first he despaired of ever seeing any change in the status quo but I was optimistic, then I lost hope while he found it; for a while, I was his boss, then he became mine.  But it was our respective roles as designer vs programmer that most defined us.  He’d think ’em up, and I’d code ’em down.

Benny stayed on after I left that job, but only for about six more months.  At that point he’d squirreled away enough money to afford to move to his Florida compound with his wife, mother, stepfather, daughter, son-in-law, and grandson.  A couple of months ago, I was able to parlay a work conference to Orlando into a bit of a family vacation—myself, the eldest, and the Smaller Animal went, while the girls stayed home.  Since Orlando is only two hours away from Benny’s new place, we knew we had to at least drop in for a visit.  But Benny, on top of being the deep thinker, hard worker, and gregarious extrovert, is also a generous soul, so we ended up staying there for several days.  I knew his wife, of course, having spent many meals and a few nights in their company in California, and I’d met his daughter a couple of times, but I didn’t know the rest of the family yet.  But I believe it really is true that good people attract other good people into their spheres, and all of Benny’s family are good people.  His stepfather welcomed us, his mother cooked breakfast for us, his wife cooked dinner for us, his daughter and son-in-law sat with us, watching movies and drinking beers.  And his grandson and the Smaller Animal spent nearly every waking minute togther.  All three of us had an excellent time and we hope we can go back again someday.

This just further illustrates why I’m pleased to know Benny.  He’s taught me, he’s managed me, he’s challenged me, he’s given to me and been willing to accept from me as well: the very definition of friendship, as far as I’m concerned.  Without Benny, my time at that job would have been quite different, and possibly much shorter.  He introduced me to Android phones, Cuban food, and e-cigarettes.  He’s traveled with me, eaten with me, and entertained me time and again with stories of his many jobs prior to his software career.  He’s been there when I needed him, and he continues to be available even though he lives on the other side of the continent.  I can easily say I’m a better—and more well-rounded—person for knowing him.




[For this exercise, I also asked my two boys to contribute their thoughts about our hosts.  The eldest gave me the following few paragraphs.  The Smaller Animal provided a few disconnected sentences at the very end, but it was like pulling teeth.  That’s more due to his shy nature than any lack of enthusiasm though.  Basically, he only talks when you’d rather he were quiet.  But I know that he really enjoyed hanging out with Anthony and considers him a new friend.]





Hey, how’s it going.  It’s me, the blog owner’s kid.  He posted my story about a bard one time? remember? no?  Well, good.  That story really kinda sucked.  Totally pulled the ending out of my ass.  Regardless, I’m pretty sure about five people are going to read this: my dad, my mom, Benny, and whoever else reads this blog for fun (the weirdos).  Anyways, enough grilling on my dad’s blog, let’s get to the meat and bones here.

Let me start off by saying: I’m still a minor.  If I walked up to some random 35 year old man, and tried to strike up a conversation, he’d brush me off.  Comparatively, if I walked up to some 14 year old person, and tried to strike up a conversation with them, they’d probably at least tolerate me.  It’s an unfortunate aspect of our society, that we think kids are stupider or less wise or whatever than adults (which is total BS, by the way).  But thankfully, there’s a lot of people who consider that opinion to be the stupidest thing possible.  And I’m friends with people like that.  I’m friends with Benny.

So, I’m guessing my dad is gonna shove this in the middle of his blog post, so I won’t try to explain who Benny is, I’ll just tell you why I like him.  He’s amenable, happy, and actually pretty fun to debate psychology and the future of life and immortality with.  Seriously, we talked about all that.  Again, he’s a fairly old guy with a fully grown daughter with a child of her own.  And he discussed philosophy with me.  Maybe that’s not super impressive to some people, but to me that really speaks to a level of understanding, that just because there’s a huge generation gap between us doesn’t mean we can’t chat and debate and argue.

So, earlier, I said I considered Benny to be my friend, and I can say that with complete sincerity.  Not only for all those reasons up there, but also because he’s an amazingly gracious host.  He accommodated us, even after we showed up at like 5 or 6 in the morning, gave us directions to his house in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, paid for things that he really didn’t need to ... I mean, come on.  Tell me right now you wouldn’t at least talk to the guy.

Anyways, I’ve fulfilled my obligations.  Goodbye, five people reading this, and if you’re among those five people, Benny: hey.  How ya’ doin’?





One thing that I liked about Benny’s house was the cats.  They are like Fred and George, but they have collars ... I can’t remember what their names were, but the one that looked like Fred was named either Tiger or Lion—I think it’s Tiger, actually.  I liked the pool, and I liked how there’s a waterfall at the pool.  I liked the drums that were in the shed place, too. 

I liked playing with Anthony because he’s cool.  He’s fun to play with.  He likes the same stuff I do, I think.  I’d like to go visit him again sometime.





So there you have it.  Thanks again for having us Benny.  And thanks for being such an awesome guy.

Guides: Marion Burden

[I wrote this earlier this week, for my family.  I’ve decided to post it here as a part of my series about people who have had a great impact on my life.  You may wish to read the introduction to the series.]

For me, as a child, “family dinner” meant the mid-day meal on Sundays, with my grandparents on my father’s side.  Oh, we had dinners with my maternal grandparents as well, sometimes, but it was more infrequent, and more ... reserved.  Not as much fun.  And, once or twice a year, we’d go to family reunions, which were huge, sprawling affairs, with more relatives than I could keep track of.  My paternal grandmother had a very large family, and most of her brothers and sisters had decent-sized families themselves, and it made for quite a lot of “cousins” to keep up with.  Except they weren’t technically my cousins ... they were my dad’s cousins, or in some cases my second cousins.

My dad’s family was smaller, more intimate.  Dad has just one brother, and no sisters.  At first I was the only kid.  Then I had one cousin, then two cousins, and then two cousins and a little brother.  And that was as big as our family dinners ever got: grandmother and grandfather, mother and father, aunt and uncle, two cousins and a sibling.  We had a lot of family dinners—big dinners at Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas, little dinners on your average ordinary Sunday—and I ate a lot of food at my grandmother’s table.  There were certain things that were very predictable at these dinners.  My grandmother would burn the biscuits.  Us kids would start eating before everyone was at the table, and we’d get yelled at.  There would be a minimum of one dish containing potatoes: boiled potatoes, mashed potatoes, or potato salad, and possibly two of the three, and, for a big dinner, probably all three.  There would always be homemade biscuits for everyone else, and canned biscuits because my uncle Jimmy and I liked those better.  And, if it was a holiday, there would be some sort of lime green Jello concoction, with whipped cream and unidentifiable chunks floating in it, and my aunt Marion would say “You know what that looks like, don’t you?”  And us kids would giggle, and my grandmother would sniff disapprovingly, but then she’d say that she only ever made the stuff just so Marion would get to deliver that line.

My grandmother and grandfather are both gone now, but all the rest of us are still here ... or at least we were, until a few days ago.  That’s when I got the word that my aunt Marion had passed away.  She’d been sick for a while now, so it wasn’t really a surprise.  Not that that helps.  When your family members die after a long illness, people will tell you that at least they’re not suffering any more, and when they die suddenly, people will say at least they didn’t suffer, but none of that really makes a dent in how you feel.  There’s a sense that you have of a person, regardless of how often you see them: it might be a large looming presence, or it might be just a comfortable feeling tucked away in the back of your mind, like the keepsakes you have up in your attic—you don’t take them out and look at them very often, but you’re comforted just knowing they’re there.  Then, one day, that sense is gone ... the loss might be overwhelming, or it might be like an itch you can’t quite reach, or it might be anywhere in between, but it’s always very sharp.  It cuts.  And it’s hard to adjust to.

I haven’t seen my aunt Marion for many years.  But I remember many things about her.  Some are superficial: her boundless capacity for the color red, and her endless delight in Snoopy, for instance, are things that everyone who knew her even slightly remembers.  Some are not even very well connected with her as a person: for instance, my earliest remembrances of my aunt and uncle are probably going out to their house, which was way outside town, and playing with their electric organ.  I don’t specifically see Aunt Marion in these memories, but the organ made quite an impression on me, as I was very young and it was very cool.

I remember giant stuffed Snoopies, and I remember elaborate piled hair-do’s, and I remember her candy-making business, with the rainbow assortments of white chocolate and the candy molds and she even made her own peanut butter cups, and that was pretty cool no matter how old you were.  And I remember lots and lots of family dinners.  I remember her bringing over my cousin Chris for the first time, and I remember her bringing over my cousin Cathy for the first time.  I remember that she laughed the loudest, and the easiest, and the most often.  I remember her giving us silly Christmas gifts, like bad cologne, just because she knew that my brother and I loved to say “Brut: by Faberge” in our best Eddie Murphy voice, and I guess she liked hearing us say it.

What I remember most about her, though, was her strength.  My Aunt Marion said what was on her mind, and she said it straight, and she didn’t care who heard her.  She was the only person in our family who did that.  My mother’s family was polite to the point of obsession; my father’s, more plain-spoken, but still proper.  But Aunt Marion went beyond plain-spoken and into what was to me a strange new world of honesty and forthrightness.  She came into a room like a whirlwind, dominated a conversation without monopolizing it, was brazen without crossing the line into shocking.  Well, I’m sure she crossed some people’s lines.  There were probably people who considered her rude.  There were probably those who were secretly jealous of her apathy towards what others thought of her.  I just thought she was cool, and, the older I got, the cooler she was.

So today I’m missing my aunt, even though I hadn’t spoken to her in forever.  Even though those family dinners are long gone, they remain fresh in my mind.  Even though I haven’t seen my cousins in years, my thoughts are with them, because they’ve lost their mother, and even though I haven’t talked to my uncle for just as long, my thoughts are with him, because he’s lost his soulmate.  My loss compared to theirs is very small, but I still feel it.  I’m going to miss my loud, crazy Aunt Marion because, in many ways, she was the best of us.  And that’s always worth celebrating.

Guides: Willie Vadnais

[This is one post in a series about people who have had a great impact on my life.  You may wish to read the introduction to the series.]

I started my company back in 1992.  It wasn’t much more than just me for a while, but through the 90s I grew it, adding more and more employees.  Mostly I hired fellow coder geeks, but I also spent a fair amount of time trying to find someone to run the business side of things so I didn’t have to think about it, someone to handle the acquisition of new clients, the management of old ones, deal with the financial crap, etc.  Because all I really cared about was coding.

I had different amounts of success with this, but never did my company achieve any sort of greatness.  Sometime around 2004 business had slowed to such a trickle that I had to start looking for a full-time job for myself just to pay the bills.

Meanwhile, in 1995, in the exact same town I lived in, three friends started an ISP that would eventually turn into ThinkGeek.  And they actually did manage to achieve a sort of greatness—the chances are that you’ve heard of their company, but you’ve never heard of mine (trust me on that).  They did that because they had a core group that was actually good at acquiring customers.  They could have used some coding help, perhaps (though the original ThinkGeek code monkey was a demon of a workhorse and a great friend of mine to this day, he was only one man, and I’m sure he wished he had some help many times).

I’ve talked before about twists of fate that we think of as “coincidences,” and in fact the story of how I went to work at ThinkGeek is in that very post, so I shan’t repeat it here.  What interests me now, as I look back on this story, is how much our lives are shaped by the strange twists of fate that don’t happen.  For instance, the ThinkGeek founders and I were both working with Linux software in the same DC suburb.  The tech community there wasn’t all that huge.  How did we never meet?  Why is it that they, who had brilliant ideas and needed programmers, and me, who had brilliant programmers but needed ideas, never managed to connect?

“The ThinkGeek founders” consist of the three original partners, plus their original programmer.  I got to know all of these people pretty well over the course of the three years I worked there.  They’re all amazing, and amazingly talented, people.  In the music that ThinkGeek created, they were the core band: the rest of us were backup singers and studio musicians.  And, in the band that is ThinkGeek, the lead singer is Willie Vadnais.

Just as I was the one who founded my company, the one who, even though he was not its CEO, its President, or the chairman of its board of directors, was still the heart of it, the man behind its vision, the oracle of its Delphi ... so Willie was to ThinkGeek.  Not always in charge, but always the center.  The man with the plan.  If you wanted to know what ThinkGeek was, at its core, you talked to Willie.

There’s only one person I ever worked for who was more fun to work for than myself, and it was Willie.  I’m not saying he’s the best boss I ever had—hell, technically he was never my boss at all—but in terms of sheer joy in coming to work every day, nobody has ever beaten Willie.  I looked forward to going to work every day when I worked at ThinkGeek even moreso than when I worked for myself.  And he was a big part of that.

Willie is in some ways a walking oxymoron.  He’s a true salesman, and also a consummate geek.  Now, in my post on reality and perception, I discussed why these are generally opposite sorts of people.  They have diametrically opposed outlooks on life.  So it’s pretty rare to find both outlooks in the same person.  But Willie is that guy.  He can come up with the brilliant ideas, sell them to the people who need convincing, and still talk technical details with the people who need to implement them.  Honestly, he’s ruined salesmen for me forever: I’ll probably always compare any new ones I meet to him, and they won’t come out looking very good.

The folks who founded ThinkGeek sold it to a larger corporation many moons ago, before I ever came along.  But they all stayed on to help run the company, to help keep things going smoothly, to keep the company true to its roots.  Jon still wrote all the back-end code, and Jen still wrote all the front-end code; Scott still dealt with all the geeky, techy hardware that ThinkGeek sold.  And as for Willie, he still kept coming up with the ideas, finding the unique products, rethinking how the website should work, tossing out the witty slogans that ThinkGeek would put on the tee-shirts.  But, one by one, the founders left ThinkGeek, moving on in frustration or pushed out by corporate overlords who didn’t understand that the company couldn’t be the same without them.  Finally, only Willie was left, and, this past Monday, ThinkGeek said goodbye to him as well.

Now, I don’t have any special insight into the corporation that currently owns ThinkGeek.  I don’t have any insider information.  But I’ve seen this pattern in corporate dealings before.  It’s amazing how efficiently a corporate machine can dismantle a golden goose to produce goosesteaks.  ThinkGeek will go on, I’m sure.  There are still many good people who work there, and they will do their best to make sure the company lives up to its reputation.  But its heart is gone.  ThinkGeek without Willie is ... strange to me, a foreign beast that I’m unsure what to do with.  I’m not sure I can in good conscience continue to shop there.

I consider Willie a friend of mine.  He was wonderful with my children, he had me over to his house on many an occasion, and I’ve gotten roaring drunk with him several times.  He’s wise in some ways, and full of childlike wonder in others.  He knows what people want, what they like, what will please them and tickle their funnybones.  He’s one of the few people in the world who, if they came up to me today and said “I have an idea for a new business,” I would say “I’m in” without even needing to hear the rest of the pitch.  He’s inspired me sometimes, and frustrated me sometimes, and made me laugh a whole lot of times.  He challenged my beliefs about salemen.  My life is richer for having known him, and I hope I get a chance to work with him again someday.

Every now and again, I get a late-night IM from Willie, although it hasn’t happened in quite a while.  Usually, he’s trying to convince me of some insane premise that’s he’s come up with, often after imbibing a few intoxicants.  This might be a business premise, but just as often it’s something else entirely.  I am typically skeptical; he is typically persuasive.  Often I end up rolling my eyes at his ideas, virtually speaking.  Still, I sort of miss it.  Maybe now that he has more time on his hands, I’ll get another midnight message.  Maybe he’ll have another hare-brained scheme percolating in his brain.  If so, I’ll be honored that he chose to share it with me.

Guides: Bernice Pierce

[This is one post in a series about people who have had a great impact on my life.  You may wish to read the introduction to the series.]

Back when I wrote about my views on political correctness, I mentioned that I have a fair number of friends who were black, including one of my best friends of all time.  You may not find this unusual at all, being that, if you have (despite my repeated warnings to the contrary) read all my blog posts, you will surely have noticed that I’m a California liberal.

But, the truth is, it is unusual.  It’s downright unlikely.  You see, I’m from Virginia, which is part of the South.  I know some of you Northerners think it’s not, but where do you think the capitol of the Confederacy was?  I was also born over forty years ago.  Forty years ago in a small town in the South ... where I grew up, there literally was a set of railroad tracks running through the town, and all the white people lived on one side, and all the black people lived on the other.  Literally.

But, even more importantly, I am descended from 4 white Southerners: my paternal grandparents were born in North Carolina, my maternal grandfather in Kentucky, and my maternal grandmother in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia, all between 1900 and 1925.  Now, I’m not saying that every single white person born in the South during that time period was racist.  Really I’m not.  But I am pointing out that the odds swung pretty damn hard in that direction.  And my grandparents didn’t beat them.  Every single one of them was racist, to one degree or another.  And at least two of them (one on each side) were very racist.  My mother used to tell me that her father would get up and change the channel if a black person appeared on the television.  I could go on, but it’s just too depressing.

Now, when people are raised by racists, it’s very difficult for them not to be racist themselves.  So let’s look at the mathematics of this: four racist grandparents raised my two parents.  Logically, they should both be racist themselves, and, since they raised me, I should therefore be racist.  And, you know what?  If I were, I wouldn’t be me.  When I look back on my life and think about all the experiences I’ve had, if I were to eliminate all the black people from them, I just couldn’t possibly be the person I am today.  Too many lives have touched mine and changed me, for the better.

So what happened?  Well, my parents were born in a 14-month span from 1945 to 1946.  They were, as most children were back in those days, raised primarily by their mothers.  My father grew up in a working-class household: both his parents worked at a factory.  His mother was every bit as prejudiced as my mother’s father, and he’s still prejudiced to this day, although I suspect he’s less open about it these days.

My mother, however, grew up in an upper-middle-class household; in fact, in my small town (I grew up in the same small town where my parents did), my mother’s family were considered wealthy, although I’m sure they wouldn’t have been in a bigger city.  But my grandfather had his own construction business, and it was very successful, and they lived in a big house.  And they had a maid.

Now, you’ve no doubt seen movies like The Help.  That movie is set in the ‘60s, but you can be sure it was similar in the ‘50s, when my mother was growing up.  Wealthy Southern families had black servants, and, if they had children, those black housekeepers often raised the children more than the mothers did.  My mother’s mother was even less interested in children than most women of her time and status, I suspect.  I do not know for sure, but I have many reasons to believe that my mother was raised almost entirely by their maid: Bernice Pierce.

Now, Bernice was still my grandparents’ maid when I was a boy.  I remember her dimly but warmly: I remember her making my lunch for me when I was visiting them, I remember talking to her and her responding and treating me like a regular person and not a pesky child that was in her way.  But her influence on my life was not so much direct.  Her influence on my life is that she broke generations of Southern racism and gave my mother the gift of an open mind.  And my mother in turn gave that gift to me.

Without Bernice, my life would be very different.  The first house I ever lived in that wasn’t owned by a family member, I rented along with my friend and coworker from Burger King: a black man.  The lawyer who got the charges dropped when I was stupidly caught shoplifting (or perhaps I should say “caught stupidly shoplifting”) was a black man.  My first (and only) one-night stand was a black woman.  The manager at the pizza joint who encouraged me to fiddle around with the office computer on which I performed a crude electronic prank which ended up introducing me to the man who was my first business partner which eventually led me the job where I met the mother of my children ... that manager was a black man.  I’m certainly not suggesting Bernice herself would have been proud of me for having all those experiences—I’m sure there are a least a few she wouldn’t have approved of.  I’m just pointing out that, without her, my mother is not my mother and therefore I am not me.  Without all those formative experiences, I am a whole different person.  And I could never have had those experiences, been able to have those interactions, if my mother had not taught me to be far more tolerant and accepting than my ancestors were.

And it’s not just a matter of black and white.  My gay and lesbian friends, my Chinese and Mexican friends, my Jewish and Hindu and Muslim friends ... how many of these people would I have gotten to know without my mother teaching me that all people are the same on some fundamental level?  Some of them, perhaps ... but then again, perhaps not.  Right now, the two people that I spend the vast majority of my time with, outside my family, are a Cuban and a French-Lebanese Armenian.  Would I have been able to forge such strong relationships with people so culturally different without the example that my mother set for me?

Now, I’ve never discussed this in detail with my mother.  I don’t know if Bernice ever talked specifically with her about racial matters; I suspect it was more just a question of being exemplary.  That the racist rhetoric that my mother was faced with from her own parents paled in comparison to the kind and nurturing example that was set for her by the person she looked to most for love and attention.  I suspect this to be so from what my mother has told me of her childhood, and from my own remembrances of Bernice: as I say, I honestly can’t remember much, but I remember a woman with a large heart and a calm disposition, a woman who always knew the right thing to say and the right way to say it.  I suspect that she was a woman who knew perfectly well that she worked for people who held hateful beliefs, and never held that against the children she was employed to care for.  I can’t imagine doing it, myself.  I would never have had the patience or the self-control.  I have an over-developed sense of injustice sometimes.  But that just goes to show you that Bernice was a better person than I, in many ways.

Bernice died a few years ago.  I never had a chance to discuss these sorts of things with her, let her know the impact she had on my life, even if indirectly.  But, then, I’m not sure I could have articulated it so well as a younger man.  Sometimes it takes a certain amount of perspective to understand the impact that the past has had on you.  From where I am now in my life, I can look back and see how much I owe to this woman.  Who, in many ways, was more of a grandmother to me than the woman who bore my mother.

I know my mother always maintained a special place in her heart for Bernice, and I don’t think she ever thought of her as “the maid.”  This was the woman who really raised her.  And, for that, I will ever be grateful.

Guides: Those I Owe

This week I’m out of town, celebrating my eldest child’s birthday, so I don’t have time for a full post.  However, here’s an intro post for a new series I’ve been contemplating.

I’ve been thinking lately that I’d like to do a series of posts on people who have influenced my life.  Partially as a thank you, and partially just as a way to preserve the stories of these folks for posterity.  I know I tell you not to read this blog, but my children are another matter.  Them I can assign it to as schoolwork or something.

But I’ve also been thinking that I’d like to expand the common definition of “influence.”  Generally when we think of people like this, we think of the people who inspired us, who taught us, who mentored us.  Our parents and grandparents are often at the top of this list.  And I don’t mean to discount those people: those people are of course the prime influencers.  But there are others as well, perhaps others that we don’t think of at first blush, and perhaps don’t ascribe enough credit to for our lives turning out the way they have.

For instance, say there’s a person you don’t know all that well—just an acquaintance, really—but this person just happens to be the one who introduced you to your spouse.  How different your life would be without that person!  Can you honestly say that this person has not influenced your life?  It may not be influence in the way we normally think of it: this person didn’t teach you any philosophy that you adopted to live your life, they didn’t pass on any virtues that you later took as your own, and they didn’t teach you any skill that you later used to earn a living.  But, still, they did something, without which you would not be who you are today.

Or how about the person who inspired your parent to choose a certain career path: all your life, perhaps, your parent has been that thing—doctor, lawyer, teacher, grocery store manager, motorcycle repairman, social worker, police officer—and that’s always who they’ll be to you.  Perhaps that career is how they met your other parent ... without that inspiring teacher or parental figure or helpful coach, you may never have been born.  Can’t say that person didn’t have a profound influence on you.

This is all tied up with the idea of fate that I talked about before.  The idea that the thousand unlikely coincidences that have come together to weave the tapestry of your life are not so random.  Only, this is a slight twist on that, because now we’re adding a hint of human agency to the “coincidences.”  Sometimes these people meant to change your life (or at least they were influencing you on purpose); sometimes it’s entirely accidental.  But my point is ... does it really matter?  The people are important either way.

So all these people are ... somethings.  I’ve been trying to think of a good word, but so far I’ve come up blank.  The closest I’ve come is “psychopomp”.  Now, technically, a psychopomp doesn’t have to be a guide specifically into the land of the dead, but that’s the usual imagery associated with it.  The word literally means “guide of souls,” which is a nice image, and fits this category of person.  Imagine that your life is a bit like wandering through a maze.  Sometimes when you choose the correct path it’s because you’re smart; sometimes it’s just dumb luck.  And then, sometimes, someone else just happened to be there, showing you the path, and you never could have found your way without them.  That’s the image I’m looking for.  Openers of the way, like Papa Legba or Wepwawet.  Or Door, even.

But “psychopomp,” besides having the close (and undesired) association with death, also sounds a bit psychopompous, if you know what I mean.  I’m looking for a nice, simple term: something to put at the beginning of a series of blog posts, that might be a bit more concise than “People Who Made Me Who I Am Today” (which would naturally be abbreviated “PWMMWIAT,” which I suppose would be pronounced “pwim-wyatt,” which is just silly).  I think I’m just going to go with “Guides,” although I’m still open to suggestions.

But the point is, these are the people who were my guideposts, my compasses, whether from exerting a strong magnetic force on me, or just from jerking a thumb over their shoulder and indicating a better road.  Both are important.  Both have had significant impacts on my life.  Both make interesting stories, and that’s what it’s really all about.

Well, that, and saying “thank you.”  Whether they put a huge amount of effort into their actions, or whether it was an offhand gesture, whether they did what they did out of a sense of duty or whether it never even crossed their mind that their actions would have such significance, whether they’ll appreciate being thought of or not, or whether they’re even still alive to be appreciative, they all still deserve my gratitude and my kind remembrances.  They made me who I am today; it’s the least I can do.





IMPORTANT NOTE: This list is no particular order, and most especially not in any order of importance.  In most cases, the posts were just written as something came up in my life that reminded me of that person.  If you’re a friend or relative of mine and you don’t appear on this list, it’s probably just because I haven’t gotten around to you yet, that’s all.  Stay tuned.

• Bernice Pierce
• Willie Vadnais
• Marion Burden
• Benny Millares