T - Mr Tracy

I was never what you would call an exemplary student. In my graduating class of 27 students, I was ranked #14. Exactly in the middle. Now, this only considers the GPA of the students. It's the only tangible number that can be used for measurement.

Despite my ranking, I believe I can honestly say that it did not reflect my intelligence. Of all the students in my class, I tied with another student for the highest score on the ACT. When the military came to our school and gave us all the ASVAB test, I scored well beyond the person who came in second. I spent the next two years fending off recruiters who wanted me to work in their nuclear program.

NOTE: I am pro-military. I just know me. I would never have survived the rigors of military life.

I was the epitome of what adults and teachers like to call "wasted potential." The potential was there and they saw it now and then, but it was rarely tapped into. Although I hated hearing the motivational or shaming speeches at the time, I now know there were two huge reasons for me not striving to achieve.

1. My extreme apathy
2. My even more extreme laziness

It was as simple as that. As a teenager, I just didn't care that much. I could not realistically see far enough into the future to understand why the grade I received on a freshman geography pop quiz would negatively impact my chances of getting promoted in corporate America.

I was very good at memorizing stuff, so I nailed those Shakespearean monologues we had to perform in class.

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious;
Her vestal livery is but sick and green
And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.
It is my lady, O, it is my love!
O, that she knew she were!
She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?
Her eye discourses; I will answer it.
I am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks:
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

I scored a 100% on that monologue and an ovation from the teacher because I performed it so well, but I've never once been asked to do it in a job interview. Which is a shame because I was really good at it for some reason.

I was quite content with my C average. It never bothered me, but sure bothered my parents. In fact, any time I pushed a little in class for the better grade, it was because my parents wanted me to.

I am not getting down on my parents. They were right and I was wrong. I just did only as much as I had to do to stay out of trouble. It was my life philosophy concerning basically everything. Yet, there was one teacher who did not accept it.

Mr. Tracy was the bane of my existence throughout my high school career. He was my biology/botany teacher.

An additional misfortune I possessed was a mother who worked in the cafeteria at my school. With her so close, it was incredibly easy for any teacher to visit her. In fact, they didn't even have to make a special trip since they would just see her at lunch time. Mr. Tracy was quite adept at this practice. He kept her informed of every assignment and my grade on each. One year they even had a standing weekly appointment for her to come in and go through my work for the week. It sucks to have a parent who cares about your future so much.

Mr Tracy would keep me after class at least three times a month to discuss not only my poor excuses for homework but also my personal life. He wanted to know what I found so important because it certainly wasn't school.

Mr Tracy was a big believer in the importance of developing your brain, getting a good education, striving for a lifetime of learning. At least once a week he would get frustrated with his class and lecture us about the importance of being a critical thinker. And then, the even bigger importance of having enough information in your head to give you the ammo to be able to think critically.

He pushed and pushed and pushed and never let up. No matter how well you did, he showed you that he thought you could do even better.

One year, the night before the semester exam, I crammed with Stephanie (also in my class) late into the night. We drilled each other on the parts of a plant, photosynthesis, genus and species of various local flora and almost memorized entire chapters of the science book. I knew that material. The next day, I confidently turned in my exam (which was all essay questions; Mr Tracy did not believe you could check understanding with multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank).

Two hours later, Mr Tracy shows up in PE class and asked to see me. I cautiously approached him and he showed me the test. I HAD SCORED A 98! I was ecstatic…until I saw the look on his face. He was not happy.

He drug me out in the hall and told me how disappointed he was. I told him I was happy that I was only two points away from perfect. And he should be too.

He took off his glasses and lowered his head. It looked like he was trying to hold back tears. He said, "You still don't get it. You have carried a 'D average' in my class all semester. And then because of one night of actually putting in a little effort, you get a nearly perfect score. How can you not see what you are capable of if you would only try?" He dropped my test on the floor and walked off.

That was the last time I ever talked to him. I graduated a few days later.

I went to community college the next year and flunked out in the second semester. His words had done nothing for me.

Over the course of the next 10 years, my life just ambled along. I did alright but never accomplished anything noteworthy. Got married, divorced and married again while I bounced from job to job. Eventually, I decided to go back to school, but this time it was different. This time I wanted to be there. After a few papers came back with 'reasonably acceptable' results, a professor left a note on a paper telling me that he was surprised I had not scored better due to the quality of my discussions in class. Suddenly, the despised words of Mr. Tracy came flooding back to me.

All of those speeches and disappointed looks he had given me for four years in high school hit home. I got it. Someone next to me could have probably seen the figurative light bulb go off over my head.

In that moment, my entire approach to school completely changed. The lowest score I've gotten for a class since then was a 97.6. I even went on to get my Master's Degree and graduated with a 4.0.

It took 15 years to kick in, but Mr. Tracy finally got into my head. I am living a dream life today (on the coast in Vietnam) because of the lessons he never gave up on teaching. I did not appreciate it at the time, but for the last 20 years I have always named him as my favorite teacher. It just took me a while to recognize it.

Mr. Tracy, wherever you are, thank you.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

S - Salon (not affiliated w/ beauty)

For the two years I lived in Beijing, my main job was working in one of the government schools. However, I had half a dozen side jobs and one of them was the easiest money I ever made.

On Thursday nights, I took a bus to an adult language center in Shuangjing 双井 and got paid to sit and talk to people. This is called an English salon.

Now, if you know me, then you know talking is one of my favorite activities. I've had lots of practice. And I'm really good at it. In fact, I can talk for hours without even having anything to say. It's just second nature to me.

All I had to do was show up at 7 p.m. as their class was letting out and talk to the students. The students were all adults who were studying English. They could all speak English but were far from fluent. My presence was to give them an opportunity to converse with a native English speaker. The school supplied me with drinks and paid me to sit there for two hours and just talk about…whatever.

Since these were not guided lessons, the conversations could take any direction and since I was the obvious foreigner most of the time we discussed the differences in our countries. And there are a lot.

Once we got to know each other and got past the initial talk of food differences and what I did for a living, it got interesting. I went in every week knowing that we were going to talk a lot about politics, guns, and drugs. Other topics were covered as well, but these were the top three.

Now, when I say politics, I mean American politics. Political discourse does not happen in China. Not only is it a taboo topic, but it is very easy to get yourself into a lot of trouble for expressing the wrong opinion to the wrong person. It is safer to just keep your mouth shut. However, it is perfectly safe to talk about the politics of other countries and they always had questions about things they had seen in their heavily filtered news. After doing my best to explain the things they read (to the best of my understanding) and correct the mountains of misinformation they had about things, it sometimes moved to almost being an American civics class. I told them about federal law versus state, city, county, and municipal. We talked about how taxes work. I taught them about the election process. And they always had questions about why I could talk so freely about this stuff. They were fascinated by the idea that a person could insult a public official or even the president right to his face without penalty.

They asked me questions about the American "gun culture". In the year that I attended this class, I only met one student there who had ever even seen a gun in person. The idea that I grew up with guns in my house petrified them. I got the impression that they would be terrified to even be in the same room with one. Despite their fear, they had a lot of questions and sometimes it got technical. After I had done my best to explain the varying philosophies on gun ownership and control, it often moved into gun laws. This always got confusing because it was hard to get them to understand that each state has its own laws. This structure does not exist in China. One guy had heard about "concealed carry" and did not understand why a person who had this special license had to be careful about what part of the country he was in. What is legal in Indiana could get you in a lot of trouble in Illinois. He never stopped asking questions about how that could be.

They had just as many questions and lots of bad information about drugs in America. Drugs do exist in China, but they are locked down pretty tight. And the penalties for violating drug-related laws are severe. Of the people in that class, only two even knew a person who had done drugs. It is not something that is out in the open. However, because of American television, they all believe that in America drugs are everywhere. They are flowing freely at every party. High schoolers trade them in the hallways like baseball cards. Every businessman has a stash in his desk drawer and every public restroom is filled with people lined up to snort cocaine off the sink counter. Once again, I spent weeks just trying my best to explain reality.

These are three big examples, but there were many other topics covered and they were all complicated by the vast differences between our cultures, values, and way of thinking. We talked about parental responsibilities, employer expectations, property ownership, use of free time, educational philosophy, celebrity culture and many more. Every new topic showed me how little they actually knew about us. And also, how little I actually knew about them.

Spending time in a country can help you start figuring out the rules and see how things work. However, it takes a lot more time to start tapping into the reasons things are done the way they are. Everyone has heard of cultural practices from other countries:

• In Vietnam, do not point with one finger. Use your whole hand.
• In China, emptying your plate suggests that the host did not serve enough food. They will be offended.
• In Kenya, you should empty your plate. Leaving any food behind suggests that you did not enjoy the meal.
• In many Muslim countries, you should not use your left hand for eating. That hand is "unclean" since it is for taking care of bathroom hygiene.
• In India, always refuse your host's first offer for a snack or drink. You will be asked again.
• In South Korea, stay very quiet on public transportation. Noisiness is considered to be very rude.

To prosper in one of these countries, just learning the rules will only get you so far. With time (and intentional effort), you will begin to understand the reasons behind these practices. That knowledge can lead to helping a person understand a lot more about what they see around them. Understanding the mindset of people takes time and it involves a lot. Hundreds or even thousands of years of practice, literature, history, weather, politics, entertainment, war, famine, prosperity, diet, and many other things helped to shape the culture and no practice has a "simple" explanation about the why.

I talked to these people every week for over a year and there were many things that I didn't understand even after they explained them. Many times. This is because it takes more than an explanation to understand some things. Our backgrounds and worldviews are so radically different that we are not connecting on the underlying thought process that goes hundreds of layers deep. 

This experience showed me just how different people are and how ongoing communication is essential to understanding each other. Really understanding takes time. Seeing it in such large-scale differences made me realize this is a common problem everywhere and not just inter-culturally. Problems of not understanding where someone is coming from happens at work and even within the same household.

I learned a lot from those people, but my biggest lesson was not about the things they told me. It was about the need to be more understanding of people. We need to spend more time listening. Anytime we are struggling to be understood, we need to be sure we are also struggling to try to understand.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

R - Regret

Everyone has those things they regret. It may be words you wish you could take back, an action you did (or did not do), or a reaction you had to something. I know I have several of those. We've all had experiences that we may wish we didn't have to live through. However, there are always those people who like to say "Well, it is your experiences that made you into the person you are today." or "It was those things that led you to this place."

I don't really curse on this blog, but I have to call bullshit. I can't think of a better word today.

While it is true that the culmination of our choices lead us to our present and bad experiences can make us stronger (but just as often weaker), that does not mean we should have taken that path.

My biggest regret in life involved a five-month-long storm in my normally peaceful life. And while I can say that I definitely learned a lot from this experience, I will not claim that my life was improved because of it.

In my early twenties, I frequented a bar near my home almost every day. As a regular, I got to know one of the bartenders. With time, I got to hear more about her miserable life. She was in a relationship with a guy who was controlling and physically abusive. But if she left, she would have nowhere to go and with two small kids, she felt trapped.

Slowly over the course of a few months, her flirting with me began to work. I don't know how many guys she was feeding this line to, but I was the one who fell for it. I decided I was going to be the one to rescue her. I called a couple of my friends one day to get some help so we could show up at her house, pack all her stuff while her boyfriend was at work and get her out of there. She was coming to live with me.

The guys I called for help were the Crew. My closest group of friends. And all of them but one, said no. They would not help. They weren't busy, they just refused to be part of it. A couple of them even told me not to do this.

I did not heed their warnings. In fact, their reluctance to help ticked me off.

But it was more than that. One of them put his finger in my face and started rattling off all the crazy things we knew about this girl. He told me she would be a nightmare and the circumstances of our new relationship would make it ten times worse in the tiny town we lived in. Everything said was true, but it didn't make me any less angry. I would show him. This girl needed help and I would put up with the inevitable storm to be that man who protected her.

I brought her and her kids back to my house where I still had a roommate that I had not checked with first (he moved out within a month). He was one of the first casualties of collateral damage this decision caused.

The backlash was swift. She lost her job immediately since the bar was owned by the father of the man I had just "rescued" her from. Being a small town with barely a hundred people, it was also the only social gathering place around. And I was no longer welcome.

The gossip around town was in full force and we were the focus of all of it. To get ahead of it, she and I got married almost immediately. I married her despite the fact that she and I were having horrible arguments every day. However, I was determined to show everyone (and it was everyone) that they were wrong. And I chalked her moodiness up to the stress of what was happening around us. I told myself I was strong enough to do this.

I had no idea how bad it was going to get.

It turned out she was crazy. And I don't just say that because she is my ex. She was crazy. She would recount the story of an argument we had to her sister and lie about everything that happened. She would do this right in front of me. I learned quickly not to call her out on stuff in front of people because the scene that was caused was not worth it.

She would fly into rages and physically attack me. One time, while trying to deflect her punches, my finger must have caught her lip. Maybe. I really don't know what happened. She might have even hit herself. But she suddenly threw herself on the ground and started screaming about me hitting her. I couldn't see any mark, but I didn't get much of a chance to look before she locked herself in the bathroom. When she came out 30 minutes later, her lip was bloodied and swollen. I knew she had done something to herself in the bathroom.

The next day, I get a phone call from her sister. Her sister told me that my wife had shown up at her house in the morning to show what I had done to her. And the story was epic. It involved furniture flying around the house and the kids screaming to protect their mother while I locked them in their rooms. This story terrified me because I didn't know who else she was telling these stories to. But her sister assured me that she knew it wasn't true. She knew the kids had stayed with their aunt the night before and she didn't believe I would behave in such a way anyway. She told me that she had long suspected the stories she told about her ex were fabricated as well.

Oh, yeah. This whole thing started because I was rescuing her from an abusive relationship. And now she's running around telling people that I am doing those things to her. And I haven't touched her. I began to see her evil ex in a much more sympathetic light. I no longer knew what was true.

I have dozens more stories about psychological manipulation, complex webs of lies that she weaved through many people, enemies that she made for me, more physical abuse (she couldn't get upset without throwing a punch and she was always upset about something), her purposefully depriving me of sleep to punish me for something, and the loss of my friends who wouldn't come around the house if she was there.

It finally came to an end in the middle of one of those big fights. She loved to find what hurt you and focus all her attention on it. She fought dirty and never had mercy. She had pressed and pressed me since I got home from work and wasn't letting up. She had already thrown things and hit me several times and she started again with her cutting words. She stepped up to me with her fist cocked back and something snapped in my head.

I took a step forward reaching for her to put a stop to this. I can't honestly say what I was about to do, but it was not going to be good. I was in a rage and had had enough. But when I started to surge toward her, I saw a glint of glee in her eyes.

She had done it. She finally broke me and she knew it. I was seconds away from sealing the deal with whatever I was about to do to her. And once I did it, she would own me.

This entire realization came crashing down on me. Months of psychological and physical torture had worn me down. I couldn't take it anymore. She had pushed and pushed and pushed and was never going to stop. I knew that sooner or later, I would hurt her. A person can only take so much. I couldn't do this anymore.

I stepped back and felt this sense of relief wash over me. I was done.

Her anger stopped for a moment as she looked at me and I think she sensed what had just happened. Her face contorted into wrath I had not seen yet. She started throwing everything she could get her hands on. She tried to scratch out my eyes. She punched and bit me. I ran out the door and left in my car as the contents of our living room started getting thrown out on to the yard.

I didn't have a plan, but I knew I could never spend another unaccompanied minute with her. Who knows what she might try to claim I've done to her. Getting out of this relationship without further damage would require witnesses from this point forward.

I was driving around trying to figure out where I was going to spend the night when my phone rang. Since it was her, I wasn't going to answer and listen to her apologies. However, she left a voicemail saying that the excitement of the evening had sent her son into an asthma attack. She was going to the hospital. I suspected that this was not true. She loved using her kids as pawns for guilt.

I didn't know where she had gone, but I used the opportunity of her being out of the house to go change the locks. Before the night was over, she showed up with the man I had "rescued" her from. A few threats were thrown around (by her, not him) and just like that, she was living back in his house.

We were legally divorced a week later.

As bad as this situation was, believe it or not, I have not put the worst stuff in here. I have a limit to the darkness I will post on my blog. She is a deeply disturbed woman.

As with every other post I have done this month, I will wrap it up by telling how this person affected me and what I learned from it. Some of this is difficult to admit.

First, I severely damaged my reputation in that small town. That bar where I met her was the only place in town to hang out and meet people and it was permanently off-the-table for me. I don't live in that town anymore, but I'm not sure I would even be welcome there today and it's been over 25 years.

After coming out of such a one-sided controlling relationship, I over-compensated when I later got married. I was so determined to never be taken advantage of like that again. It took a few years to shake free of the baggage I brought into my second marriage. I was super-sensitive about any type of criticism toward me. I did not like to be questioned about anything. I almost wonder if it was a mild form of PTSD. It was a five-month nightmare and I did not come out unscathed.

My friends started coming back around once she was gone and they got to hear the stories about what went on behind closed doors. And I told them that I was hurt they abandoned me. They rightfully defended themselves. They hadn't abandoned me. I had abandoned them. And there was no reason they should be expected to have to sit in a room with a person they hated just to show loyalty to me. They were more than happy to hang out with me anytime she wasn't around. And it's not like I didn't know where they were. But she had worked to alienate me from my friends and I unknowingly let her do it.

They also reminded me that they had all told me to steer clear of her. None of them saw a happy ending to this and I had chosen to ignore them. That is the biggest part of what I take away from all this.

When everyone can see something except for you, you might want to accept that it is you who is blind.

I saw the warning signs before I got married. I saw a few of them before I even "rescued" her, but I decided I knew better than everyone else. And I mean EVERYONE. So many people were against us that I was determined to make it work just to "win" and shove it in their faces. I honestly believe that if no one had said anything, I would have backed out on my own before it was too late.

LIFE LESSON: If you have surrounded yourself with good people who you respect, then their guidance and opinions should carry some weight. Otherwise, why are they your friends?

Thank you to all of you who had my back. I am so sorry I did not listen.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

Q - Quixotic (Chuck)

Today's post for this month's theme of people who have affected my life is dedicated to Chuck McMichael.

And Chuck gets the letter Q because someone had to get it and it has proven difficult to get everyone assigned to each of the letters. I chose the word quixotic because, much like Don Quixote, Chuck is always ready to take on the world. Even if it just beats him up.

I met Chuck in college. Chuck, like me, foolishly took on the rigors of higher education after getting married and having children. In fact, all my old friends from college were in the same situation. I think the harrowing experience of us getting together each night to lament "What were we thinking?" was the common bond that cemented our lifelong friendships.

Chuck's family and mine all lived in the same apartment building in Married Student Housing. They even lived in the same stairwell. Sometimes one of us could just yell out the front door and get the other's attention.

Because all the people in the complex were in the same basic situation (classes all day, part-time job, family life, finding time for homework, etc), we had somewhat similar schedules. Our lives did not have room for homework until the kids were down for the night, so we all kept late hours. It was mostly during those late hours that I got to know Chuck.

Stepping outside for a study break, we would sometimes run into each other. We also shared many of the same classes so one of us might wander over to the other's apartment to compare notes or discuss the complexities of a paper we were writing. However, Chuck and I both are more than happy to take advantage of socializing and often burned many more hours talking than we should have.

1998 - Chuck (on right) and I probably discussing
video games rather than our assignments

With time, our families became more involved with each other. One semester, I kept his youngest kid at my house while Chuck went to his afternoon class. We each had a daughter the same age, so they were always together at one of our houses. Being poor college students, there was always the situation of borrowing each other's pots and pans, a cup of milk, a couple of eggs, etc. We had a lot of fun struggling through those college years together.

There were other families that lived in that stairwell also, but most of them were forgotten once we all went our separate ways. Chuck's family is one of the few that stayed close. When I left school to go on the mission field, Chuck became my stateside liaison. If there was something we needed, he took care of it. He even drove five hours to pick us up from the airport at midnight when we returned to the States. He then drove us six hours to our families (while we slept) and then another two hours to get himself back home.

Once back in the States, we each made regular trips to each other's houses to visit. And there were a lot of phone calls (still are today). Chuck was one of the main people who I talked to when I was going through my divorce. A few years later, the situation was reversed and I got to do the same for him.

When Red and I decided to have a small wedding in her parents' backyard, Chuck was the first person I called. I wanted him to officiate and he was happy to do it. He is getting married this year and asked me to do the same for him. I'm on the other side of the world, so it just wasn't possible. I hate that this distance will keep me from even attending his wedding, but he understood.

Chuck has always been immediately ready to jump at whatever needs to be done to help out his friends. He has proven to be a much better friend than I could ever hope to be to anyone.

Chuck is someone who I expect to stay in contact with for the rest of my life and I highly value that relationship.

Chuck, thank you for your unwavering integrity and constant willingness to be there. I am so grateful that our paths crossed 20 years ago and we did not waste them.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

P - Piercing

Several years ago, I went to work in a tattoo shop and eventually bought the place. The things I experienced there could easily keep me writing for years, but it is the people I met through that experience that I value the most. Most importantly, a guy named Brad Duncan.

Even at the risk of this sounding like a bro-mance, I'm just going to put it out there. I love this man. Deal with it.

I met Brad in the summer of 2008 when I started hanging out at the tattoo shop I mentioned above. He was typically the first face a customer saw when they walked in the door and he was the body piercer. Because I was spending more time at the shop, Brad and I had talked several times, but we came from very different worlds. There was no apparent connection.

Eventually, I started a body piercing internship at that shop so I could work there. Since Brad was the piercer, he was my trainer. Our new working relationship meant we spent a lot more time together and we got beyond the small talk. It didn't take long to discover we each had a rather twisted sense of humor. We also each love to laugh and joke around, so our humor muscles got quite a workout each time we were together.

 Brad's two-year-old with his favorite toy

I can think of a few stories of things Brad and I did together, but none are pertinent to us becoming friends. Our friendship was built in that shop. Over the next couple of years, we saw a lot of each other and had hundreds of hours of conversation to get to know each other.

The circumstances of me leaving the shop a few years later were ugly, but Brad had my back the entire time. I'll never forget that.

We lost touch for a couple of years and then somehow reconnected and have talked regularly ever since. In fact, the last time I traveled back to the States, Brad and his wife put us up in their house for almost a whole week. It was great getting to stay up late catching up each night.

Looking at Brad and looking at me separately, one would never guess we would have anything in common. Much less, actually be friends. And "on paper", there would also be no reason to come to that conclusion but I am so grateful that surface perception lost out on this one.

I learned a lot in my time at that tattoo shop, but my connection with Brad may be one of the most powerful lessons. It took a little time to get to know Brad, but the time spent doing so led to a friendship that has lasted over a decade so far.

By appearance (physical, the way he talks, his clothes, etc), Brad is not someone I would have typically given a second look. I wouldn't have had a bad opinion, just no opinion as someone so apparently different than me. He probably thought the same of me. However, the job forced us to communicate and find the person that was underneath.

Being friends with Brad has taught me about how much we miss in life because we are so quick to judge others.

When we talk about judging others, people typically jump to big issues like racism, sexism, class discrimination, etc. Though, it is not always big negative decisions that we are making. On a smaller scale, it affects who we choose to pay more attention to. Who we choose to approach when asking for directions. Who we choose to sit next to in the work cafeteria or the movie theater. Who we strike up a conversation with at a party. Your next best friend (love interest, job prospect, business connection, etc) might have been in the same room with you last night, but you didn't give that person a second look because of their ripped jeans, long hair, sports jersey, VOTE HILLARY button, weight, pierced nose, thick glasses, cowboy boots, MAGA hat, concert t-shirt, gaudy jewelry, hemp sandals, or whatever.

There are wonderful people everywhere (not to be confused with saying "all people are wonderful" because they aren't), but a lot of them get by us because of our personal and sometimes subconscious biases. I'm glad circumstances forced Brad and I to break through.

Brad, I am forever grateful to know you. Thank you.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

O - Old People

This post is not about old people in general. It is about a very specific group of people. And them being older is not really the point. I just had to find a way to fit all my 26 stories into this month while also using all the letters of the alphabet. O was still open, so they got this spot.

Years ago I was the associate minister in a church and I had been preaching in another church down the road while they looked for their own minister. It was eventually suggested that maybe I should fill the spot and that is what happened.

Now, before I go any further with this story I want to give this disclaimer. That church was filled with a bunch of wonderful people. It was. I do not have any complaints about a single person from that congregation. Please keep this in mind as I tell my story.

The average age of the membership of this church was well over 60. It was an older congregation in a small town. I was a young, recently divorced father from a different denomination. I, honestly, had no business being the spiritual leader for this group of people.

They recognized that they were a generation away from the church dying and wanted new younger membership. However, they also wanted me to spend my days visiting all the older people of the church who just couldn't get out much anymore. I have no problem with this practice and met some wonderful people, but the hours spent sitting and drinking tea with people who had been already been Christians for decades are not growing the membership of the church. Which is what I was told they wanted.

I do believe those people should be visited, but it should not have been the bulk of my time as was expected. And second, it should not have been the sole responsibility of the pastor. That is one of the many reasons churches have elders. They have a much bigger spiritual responsibility than just sitting on the church board.

Next, any special events designed for community outreach received no support. No one ever resisted, but I got no help either. We hosted a kite-flying, weenie roast one day. This was meant to have the people of the community come to a free event and meet the people of the church. Bring a kite, eat some food and have some fun. I didn't get any takers for volunteers to bring potluck food so I brought stuff myself. My kids and I built a fire and laid out all the hot dogs, condiments, buns, paper plates, and chips. About three dozen people showed up from the community. As for the people of the church (who asked for community outreach events), only two people showed up. And they sat at a picnic table talking to no one but each other and me when I was close enough to hear.

On another occasion, we decided to have a special service mid-week for Flag Day (or another small holiday, I forget which). It was intended to be a short service with a patriotic theme. My kids and I got to the church early. We got everything fired up and waited. Not one single person came. NOT EVEN THE WORSHIP TEAM!!!

It was me and my kids sitting in an empty church.

In the meantime, I had stumbled into a new ministry field and had been working part-time in a tattoo shop to talk to the customers there. It was exciting and I was seeing positive results. I was even using the things that happened in that shop as illustrations in my sermons on Sunday mornings. And while everyone praised the work they heard about in this mission field, they still had to admit that their preacher worked in a tattoo shop. Which I understand. Sort of.

Almost everything I tried just flopped. Nothing seemed to work. I was starting to grow quite apathetic. One day after church, my family and I were leaving for lunch and I noticed as driving by the church that the cars of the members of the church board were in the parking lot. The church board was having a meeting, but I had not been invited. I immediately knew what that meant.

The following week, during our regularly scheduled board meeting, I explained the frustrations I had been having and admitted that I was not the person to be leading this congregation. I handed them a resignation letter. They all looked at each other and just accepted it. There were no questions, so I still believe my suspicions were correct. I was about to be dismissed anyway.

As I stated at the beginning, the people of that church were good people. I'm still friends with some of them today. But I was not the guy who should have filled that spot. It was a miserable couple of years.

My theme for this month has been to write about people who have affected my life and this experience definitely qualifies. I learned a lot from this experience. I had always been one to just put my head down and plow through something. Even before tackling a situation that looked like a bad idea, I would just decide I could figure it out or endure until it was over. That was not how I saw this before I got hired, but it turned into that.

Sometimes a situation is not a good fit and trying to force it only prolongs the inevitable. There were plenty of factors that made me the wrong guy for that job. Not just the age difference. And the longer I stuck it out, the worse position it placed on the leadership who had to deal with it. I'm sure they were not looking forward to firing me. Plus, what church wants to even have that as part of their history? Firing their preacher. I was happy to step down. It saved them the embarrassment and allowed me to go do something I was better suited for.

I am more discerning about the things I choose to do now. I've also learned that it is okay to be a little more assertive about speaking my mind. I don't have to just go along with everything. It was a huge learning experience and I am a stronger person because of it.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

N - Now (Red)

Next month, my wife and I will be celebrating our 5^th wedding anniversary. Our marriage has been a whirlwind of adventure. Let me just list some truths about our relationship story.

• I proposed to Red before I had met her or knew her name. I had never even seen a picture.
• I hacked a state database to learn where she worked so I could send her flowers.
• The time frame between us picking a wedding date and the day of the wedding was 8 days.
• One year later, we vacationed in Turkey the week before their military coup. Ankara got bombed days before we were there. A Syrian refugee searched our car one day for bombs before letting us leave his camp.
• We moved to China 17 months after getting married.
• We now live in Vietnam.
• In the short time we've been together, we have lived in three different countries and visited seven. We've seen both U.S. coasts and much of the country in between.

Life has been busy and it has been great, but months ago someone asked me a question that still rattles around in my head.

 "Weren't you concerned that moving to another country might be too much strain for a couple so recently married?"

It was a legitimate question. Moving twelve time zones away to a foreign land is immensely stressful and scary and technically we were still a new couple. But I don't remember being worried about that.

We were honest with ourselves and each other during the moving process. We knew there would be some huge challenges once we got there and we recognized that we didn't even know what those challenges were going to be. We also knew that one of our biggest strengths as a couple is our ability to communicate. We talk to each other.

I mean really talk.

I was concerned about the stress of the move and the adjustments that would be required, but I was not concerned about how it would affect our relationship. I think it goes back to how we started dating.

Red and I met online through each other's blogs. I'm not going to tell the whole story here, but innocent conversations online grew into more. This gave us a chance to get to know each other outside of looking for romance. When the possibility of a relationship began to grow, we threw some hard truths at each other. We even had a 'red flag' conversation. On that phone call, we each admitted things about ourselves that would make us look bad. (For me: I rarely hold a job more than a year, I had two ex-wives, etc)

We candidly stated our stances on social, political and religious issues. We explained how we felt about kids, finances, ethics, family traditions and much more. We just put it all on the line.

We talked in depth about all the things that a lot of couples don't get into for years. I believe we both knew this relationship had the potential to go somewhere and it just needed to all be out in the open. We didn't want to waste each other's time if there was something one of us would not be able to live with. Why wait years to learn something and then break up?

This also caused us to call each other out on some bad communication habits we had each picked up over the years. For myself, she quickly corrected how I respond to questions when I don't appreciate the direction of a conversation. With some honest self-reflection and looking back at how this practice had not been helpful in my last marriage, I was able to change it.

This is just one of the ways that being in this woman's presence has made me a better person.

All of this is also why I was not worried about how we as a couple would handle our big move to China. We had each other's backs and knew that.

I am so in love with my wife and look forward to where the next five years will take us.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

M - Maurice Smith

I have written many times about how I was not the most adept at social intelligence while in high school. I had earned the nerd title years earlier and had settled well into my role. I knew who I was and if I ever forgot for a moment, I had someone nearby to remind me and put me back in my place.

However, those people who kept me in place were restricted to my school life. Since I spent most of my waking hours there, I had subconsciously allowed them to affect how I defined myself even outside of the school building. Though, sometimes I forgot who I had been told I was and took on a different persona.

The place this was the most obvious was at my church.

My brothers and I were quite active in our church youth group. We went to every activity, concert, camp, trip, and outing. And we were lucky to be in a church that had a vibrant youth ministry.

Over the course of the many years I spent in that church, I saw a few different youth ministers come and go and I have several I remember fondly. But this post is about a particular one named Maurice Smith. Maurice was largely responsible for allowing me to explore who I was outside of the confines of my school-appointed identity.

Maurice's leadership of the group was over 30 years ago and I honestly don't remember much of it. However, I do remember a few key practices he had that the previous leader did not. Maurice believed in handing us more responsibility for ourselves and our group. He aimed to make us leaders.

When at school, I was timid and understood the social rules and what could and could not be gotten away with but at the church I was outspoken. I made decisions. I made my opinions about things known and actively participated in discussions.

Part of this confidence came from the way Maurice practiced the duties of his ministry. I remember handling a large part of the logistics for bringing a band into town when I was only 14 years old. Our church was hosting a youth music festival and there was a lot that needed to be done. Rather than the church just taking care of all the details and telling us when to show up, Maurice delegated out the tasks that needed to be done to us. And we did much more than set up chairs.

A tent needed to be ordered and set up, an outdoor stage had to be brought in, the band had to be hired and all their demands met, and tons of other things involving food, games, seating, transportation, advertising, et cetera had to be taken care of.

Maurice saw all this as a learning opportunity. He put me in charge of securing the band and staying on top of the communication with them. And I did. He was always there to offer help, but I did it.

After the completion of the show, the group decided to start a small production company to bring more big-name acts into town. And with Maurice's leadership, we did just that. I was even the president of our little company. We only put on a few small shows, but it was very empowering for a bunch of young kids.

This is just one of the many examples of how Maurice reshaped the way I thought about myself. When I was in this setting, I was not only more outgoing but I was one of the leaders. However, I did not notice this contrast until one particular church event.

There was a girl in our youth group that went to my school. One Sunday evening, we were having a cookout at a member's home and she had invited two of our classmates. Both basketball players.

I had no idea they were there. I was in the back helping with setting up the meal while most of the youth were out front playing a game. When everything was set up, one of the adults asked me to go call everyone to the back to eat. I ran around the corner of the house to yell to the crowd and noticed the two guys from my school.

Suddenly, I was tongue-tied. A timidity crept over me that kept me from yelling for the crowd. The guys did nothing wrong and were not people who gave me trouble at school, but their presence intimidated me.

I went quietly from group to group telling each of them and the exodus toward the food started without me having to really put myself out there. I didn't even realize I had switched back into school mode, but Maurice noticed.

He called me out on it later and helped me recognize what had happened. I had suddenly stifled who I was because of a couple of people who were in the room. He then helped me see that if those two guys caused me to hide that much, then I was probably totally hidden every time I actually walked into school. And he was right.

Maurice made sure that I recognized I was a fairly popular and well-liked person everywhere except school. And it may be difficult to break free from high school stereotypes, but I had to take some responsibility for how people saw me. There are a whole host of reasons for why I had become withdrawn at school, but that was not what I had to do. That was just the reaction that had grown comfortable to me. If I was willing to step out of my comfort zone, I could take a little more control.

This realization did not change me overnight, but it did start a process. It challenged me to be me. Not just when it felt safe, but all the time. To go ahead and put myself out there. That conversation with Maurice was a direct cause of what lead me to talk to Jeff (story here) who became my best friend and best man at my wedding. This also lead to my last semesters of high school being incredible.

Maurice laid the groundwork for a couple of years before the events of that night, but I view the conversation that evening as one of the pivotal moments in my life. And I cannot thank that man enough.

Thank you, Maurice. You have no idea the difference you made for me.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

L - Lean On Me (Christi)

About a decade ago, my marriage of twelve years disintegrated. I decided a long time ago that the details of how and why will never be discussed on this blog. Plus, they are not pertinent to my story today.

As one would expect, going through a divorce is very stressful. My ex and I did pretty good to keep things civil and were even able to only hire one lawyer to handle everything. She and I sat down and agreed to certain terms on our own and then had the lawyer draw it up.

Despite our surface civility, we were both hurt. For myself, there was a lot of anger and confusion and a sense of I don't even know. There were a lot of emotions all crashing in at once.

It is in times like this you find out who your true friends are. Who stands by you when your life is at its lowest? I had several people who filled that role, but one stands out above the others.

Her name is Christi. I had known Christi for close to twenty years before this happened. She had become more of a friend in the few years right before my divorce, but when everything completely fell apart, she stepped up. Although, I think it started accidentally.

Christi and I were both working as volunteers at a youth summer camp one week. It had just become public that my wife and I were separating, so it was all still new to me having to navigate the public aspect of this kind of news. After lights out for the campers, I wandered into the cafeteria for a drink and sat at one of the tables. A few minutes later, Christi wandered in for the same. We made small talk and she sat at the other end of the table.  The topic of my impending divorce eventually came up.

After a few words were exchanged, Christi asked a few probing questions. These questions were not asked so she could get more information. She asked to force me to reflect a little further. Then, she listened. I mean…really listened. And it felt good to get a lot of this stuff off my chest. I really hadn't talked to anyone yet since it was all still so new.

We stayed up much later than we should have. I thanked her for listening and wandered off to find my bunk. It was a therapeutic night that I was thankful for. I had no idea there would be more.

A week later, Christi droped by my office to check on me. Every now and then, she would call for the same reason. Sometimes, I would call her. I know that I burned many hours bending her ear. She was great.

In these conversations (sometimes quite emotional), she mostly just listened to me rant or cry about whatever was bothering me that day. She rarely offered advice and when she did it was subtle. But the one thing she did do was call me out if I said something that was unfair or "limited to my male perspective". There were times that my perspective of what had happened were exactly that. My perspective. They weren't true to the full reality. She was great at pointing out those inconsistencies without making me feel attacked.

It takes a long time to get over something as big as divorce and Christi stayed available the entire time. With time, the topics of our conversation became less and less about my issue and slowly morphed into a genuine friendship. We remained close even after my neediness had subsided.

It is said that it is difficult to make real friends after entering into your adulthood, but I've learned how. Emotional trauma and getting lucky that someone will step up. - BAD JOKE

Thank you, Christi, for being there when I really needed someone. I'll always love you for that. You were a true friend through it all and continue to be one today.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

K - Keesler (Tabatha)

Sometime shortly before I hit junior high my cousin started staying with us during the summer holidays. Her name was Tabatha. Tabatha Keesler (there's my K), but we called her Tabby.

My recollection may be off, but my understanding of her coming to stay with us was to keep her out of trouble. My aunt Dulcy (Tabby's mother) was a single mom and she worked a full-time job. Once Tabby had gotten a little older, her choice of friends and activities were not mom-acceptable. So, in the summer when there was no school, Tabby had a lot of free time to get into trouble. Somehow, the solution was to send her to another state where she not only had zero influence from her troublemaker friends but also more adult supervision.

So, our male-dominated household gained a sister every year for almost three months.

My brothers and I loved when Tabby came to stay with us because she was older. I was the oldest of three boys and Tabby was four years older than me. Plus, we were a bunch of country hicks and she was from the city. She had some good stories. The first few years she came, she was just an older playmate, but as she progressed into high school she had world experiences we had never even considered.

She would tell us about the crazy nights she had out with her friends and we understood why her mother sent her away each summer. She also listened to music we had never heard before.

We lived outside a very small town and the only music we ever heard was what our parents played on the radio. It was country music all the time. In the early 80's, people didn't have MP3 players. The cassette Walkman and MTV (we didn't have cable anyway) wasn't even a thing yet. I wasn't going to school and learning of new music from my friends.

One day she checked out some records from the city library.

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1546608

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2221621

We had no idea what we were looking at. And it took her a while to convince us that Boy George was actually a boy. When we got back to the house, we couldn't wait to play the music for us. And, of course, we loved it because our older cooler cousin told us it was cool. But we had never been exposed to music like that before. It was so different. Although, I do remember genuinely enjoying Blondie. I was obsessed with the song Rapture.  

I think it was the pseudo-rap portion that fascinated me. I still have that part in my head.

It wasn't just about the music, it was just cool to have another person in the house. She was older. She was from a very different place than us. And she was fun. We loved our summers with Tabby.

Once she hit about 16, she was able to even venture out from our house on her own. She formed a few friendships with locals that she maintained for the rest of her life. I remember once being disappointed that she had made a friend with a local girl and she would occasionally go spend the night at this girls house. She was my cousin. She's supposed to be here to play with me.

I'm sure she got tired of constantly being surrounded by her younger cousins. My mom did her best to help her meet some new people.

Once she hit college age, the need to be shipped out-of-state diminished and we did not see her as often. We saw her at family get-togethers about once a year. Since that side of the family lived close to six hours away, my brothers and I had a connection with Tabby we did not have with the rest of our cousins. We had seen a lot of her and the rest of our cousins only at reunions. Her connection to our family was so strong, she asked my father to give her away at her wedding.

All (well, most) of the cousins on my mom's side
Tabatha (front left)

Well into our adult lives, Tabatha was one of the cousins I was always excited to see. But as often happens, as adult responsibilities took over, that connection began to diminish.

We saw each other now and then when she was passing through town or at family gatherings, but the childhood history was well in the past. However, my mother stayed very close to her.

Tabatha died a few years ago after a long battle with cancer. She had worked for the Fulton County Sheriff's Department for many years and it was touching to see how many lives she touched when we attended her funeral. We may have known her as the rowdy teenager, but she had grown into a beautiful adult.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

J - Joe

Before leaving the States, I lived in Indianapolis for a few years. My first job in that city was working in one of the city schools. I worked in the "Severely Disabled Special Education" classroom. Many of the students in that classroom were non-verbal. Some were in wheelchairs. A few were not even capable of taking care of personal hygiene issues. There were autistic children, one with Down Syndrome, one that was blind, non-verbal and unable to care for himself. Several other ailments existed in this classroom as well. Each student had their own combination of challenges to face.

Of all the students in that class, there were three that were capable of having a normal conversation. One of them is who I am writing about today. His name is Joe.

Joe was a 12-year-old African American student with some sort of high-functioning autism and some other cognitive issues.  A person actually could talk to Joe for a few minutes and (other than a bit of a speech impediment) not realize he had any issues.

Joe could not read and I doubt he ever will be able to. He could not even recognize letters. Joe's mental state was probably as advanced as it is ever going to be. There are specialized schools who may have been able to be more help, but Joe came from a poor inner-city family and a public school day-care setting was the best he was ever going to get.

Whatever setbacks he had facing him, Joe was a notoriously happy kid. And he was one of my favorites in the class. I know a teacher is not supposed to have favorites, but we do. And Joe seemed to adore me. He was at my side constantly. He would get a bit moody when one of the other teaching assistants had to do something with him so I could work with another student.

Joe is one of those kids that I really wanted to take under my wing and be of more assistance to but teacher-student relationships can be tricky so it is better to just not get involved. However, when I left that school to go work in an actual autism center, I got Joe's information. If I was no longer his teacher, I could be of more help.

On the last day of school, I drove to his house to go introduce myself to his mother and explain my intentions. Joe and I just wanted to occasionally hang out. Go catch a movie, play video games, whatever. However, getting to his house was an eye-opening experience. Seventeen people lived in this tiny, filthy house. Most of them were kids. There were holes all the way through the walls and I could tell immediately upon meeting Joe's mother that she had a severe substance abuse problem.

She didn't question anything I said and told me I could take Joe any time to do anything. I didn't consider that to be good parenting, but I was sure that was far from the biggest problem in that house.

For the next year, I picked Joe up about every other week and we went to do something. We went to see the latest Fast & Furious movie in the theater. We went back to my house to play XBOX. We went and played catch in the park. He never cared what we did. He just loved having someone who paid attention to him. And I enjoyed knowing that I was taking him to do things that he never got to do.

Joe never asked for anything. He was always happy to do whatever I had in mind. However, once I said, "What would you like to eat tonight?" He told me he wanted a steak. He had a steak once and loved it. So, we went to Applebee's.

As soon as we stepped inside, he said, "I don't like this place." I was surprised.

"Have you been here before?"

He said, "There's just too many white people."

Here's a picture of me.
In case you can't tell, I'm pretty white.

I asked, "You don't like white people?"

"No. All that money. They think they're better than everybody else."

I got down low and said, "Joe, look at me. I am white."

Joe stepped back and looked me up and down. He then laughed and waved me away. "You're not white. You're pretty cool."

That was intended as a compliment, so I took it that way.

He did agree to eat there and was thrilled that we got a black waitress. We sat and ate steak and fat baked potatoes while he told me all the reasons he hates white people. It was an interesting dinner.

I stayed in touch with one of the other aides from Joe's classroom and she knew that I saw Joe now and then. She would occasionally call me to tell me about things Joe needed. Maybe Joe did not have a winter coat or his shoes were falling apart or he needed a haircut. I would try to get these things for him or find someone who could.

Getting involved in Joe's life was an eye-opening experience. I always knew I had it better than most people, but seeing it face-to-face is different than hearing about it. However, I didn't do it to be a big help to him. Yes, I know I helped, but my original intention was actually for myself also.

When I moved to Indianapolis, my youngest had just turned 18 and she did not come with me. I was without my kids for the first time in over twenty years and I missed having kids to do stuff with. That may sound immature, but it's part of who I am. Today, I live in Vietnam and despite the language barrier, I try to engage with the kids in my neighborhood. I just love it.

That experience with Joe introduced me to how other people live and struggle. Conversations with him and some people in his family really opened my eyes to how blinded we are by our own circumstances and experiences when we observe the world. There are realities that they could not see due to their life experience and the same is true of me. It is difficult to see outside our beliefs, prejudices, customs, culture, and traditions.

I don't know what Joe got from me other than a few fun days, but I know I learned a lot from him.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

I - Irreconcilable

All month for the A to Z Challenge, I have been writing about people who have impacted my life and it has been great. Doing this self-reflection and digging deep into my memories has been an enjoyable experience. I have been getting many phone calls and Facebook messages from various people who have been involved with some of the stories I have written. However, not every impact on a person's life is a positive one. This is one of those posts.

Several years ago, I met a dynamic and exciting person. I will call him Nick. I found him quite interesting and created reasons to be in his presence. He always had a good story and had a way with people.

A friendship began to develop and I even started working part-time at his place of business. This eventually grew into me buying Nick's business and him staying on as an employee. It took about a year for me to start to see Nick for what he really was.

Nick was always surrounded by groupies. I call them that because that's what they were. People who were fans of this bigger than life personality. Nick was fun to be around and he surrounded himself with people who fawned over him. Unfortunately, I was one of those people for a while.

Being friends with Nick came with perks. We never waited for a table in a restaurant. We would show up with 12 people at a place with the line out the door and Nick would snap his fingers at the hostess or someone behind the bar and we would get seated right away.

Nick could secure hard-to-get tickets to events that were supposedly sold out. Anything you needed done, he knew a guy. And he could get it (whatever it may be) at a greatly discounted rate, if not free.

People clamored to be part of his inner circle and I was there. And it was exciting. People around town knew who I was because of my connection to him. It was empowering, but with time I began to see the cost also. Nick also had a lot of enemies. However, he was very good at twisting the truth to make it presentable to the people close who might have questioned him.

Being friends with Nick was demanding. He had expectations of his little fan group and everyone was eager to please. Those favors he was always calling in to get what he and his friends wanted? Sometimes the demand was put on one of us. And we did as we were asked because we felt like we owed him. However, nothing he did ever actually cost him anything. Once you start to realize that, the rose-colored glasses begin to fade.

Nick's posse of followers was (and still is today) a rotating group of people passing through. As I began to be disenfranchised and sometimes excused myself from group events, Nick's attitude toward me began to sour. When our group started affiliating with another group that I just could not associate with ethically, I decided to pull out completely. With that decision, Nick completely turned on me.

Suddenly, I was his enemy. And the shocking part was that I hadn't done anything to him. My only crime was not following him around anymore. Unfortunately, I was tied to him legally through my business and he did everything he could to make things difficult.

By the time I actually got free, it had cost me $16,000 and a few legal repercussions I was still dealing with for the next eight years. He bad-mouthed me to anyone who would listen and I heard the same things being said about me that I had listened to him say about other past friends of his that had "stabbed him in the back." When really all they had done was walked away.

Despite all the people who had come and gone through his circle of influence, Nick was masterful at leveraging relationships and procuring favors. He still does it today.

In telling this story, I was purposefully vague because I am not trying to bad-mouth the guy by name (not Nick). Although, the people who know me well can probably put it together.

I lost a lot of money because of this man and I lost a lot of my own self-respect for a while. The only reason I was cost anything was because of my own stupidity and being willing to buy into all his BS. And all the warning signs were there. They are pretty easy to see after the fact.

Despite my entire experience with him ending very badly, I have to admit that I learned a lot from that experience. I need to listen to my gut more often. I saw some signs early on, but my trusting nature pushed them to the side. I'm not as trusting as I used to be. Don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I'm definitely not as naive. Although, I do believe I am overly critical of people now.

I will never go into business with a friend again. I know this one was an extreme case, but it is one of my rules now.

People don't as easily charm me today. In fact, those people with the strong personalities tend to repel me. I'm not saying they are bad people, it just doesn't work for me anymore.

My experience with Nick was not good and I do wish it had never happened, but I do believe I came out to be a stronger person on the other side.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

H - High School (Jeff)

I have written many times about how I was a nerd in school. I wasn't a complete social outcast, but I was far from being one of the "in" crowd people. However, I didn't finish school that way. By the time I graduated high school, I had completely come out of my shell, got invited to the parties and was reasonably well-liked. And I know exactly how it happened.

When I started my sophomore year, there were a few new students. There usually are. One was a guy named Jeff Caudle. Jeff was one of the sports guys. He gained popularity pretty quickly and the girls seemed to like him. Just another one of those people who is not part of my circle.

Now, I honestly don't remember how we became friends but Jeff remembers our first meeting. He claims that I approached him in the library one day and in a high nasally voice, sheepishly said, "Is your name Patrick?"

I don't believe I ever had a high nasally voice, but that's the way Jeff loves to tell the story.

Jeff only lived in Waltonville for two years, but over the course of those two years, we became tight friends. We stayed over at each other's houses, ran around together, got into trouble together and double dated.

Junior Prom - May 1988
Me (left), Jeff (right)

In fact, Jeff is the reason I went on my first date ever. He talked me into asking out a girl because it might be fun to double. Then, he pulled out to do something else.

Hanging out with one of the more popular students put me in situations I would never have found myself in. I made appearances at parties. I went to the basketball games. Being seen with Jeff gave me a little more confidence to put myself out there. And I learned that people might actually like me if I allowed them to. I stopped hiding quietly in the corner and it paid off.

Jeff moved away the summer before senior year, but I was over most of my social oddities by then. My senior year was great.

Jeff may have moved away, but we still stayed in touch. He was only two hours north, so occasionally one of us would drive to spend the weekend with the other. Over the next couple of years, I dated two of his cousins. He eventually stood as the best man for my wedding. Twice. I stood in his wedding also but his brother got the best man spot.

I lived with him and his parents for a while and he lived with me and mine. We were pretty well-entwined into each other's lives and each other's extended family. When his mother had her wisdom teeth taken out, it was me who drove her home. And when his aunt was released from the hospital after having a C-section, I picked them up from the hospital. Jeff's dad hired me to work for him one summer installing security plates on rest area vending machines around the State.

Eventually, Jeff and I were roommates in a nasty little redneck, rat-trap trailer but we had a lot of fun and threw some great parties. We also had some of our biggest fights during that time. Being friends with someone does not necessarily mean that being roommates will be a good idea. We each had some legitimate complaints about the other.

Life moved on and we saw each other a few years into each of us getting married and eventually living in different states. We still talk occasionally, but life is different now. This was one of those friendships that I tried to hold onto longer, but it is difficult to force it.

Regardless of this, I am thankful for those years we did hang out and intrude so much into each other's lives. I know those couple of years in high school definitely turned my life for the better.

Jeff, if you ever read this. I miss you, buddy.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.

G - Glen Crocker

At some point in my high school years, there was a man in my church named Glen Crocker who took a special interest in me. I don't remember when it started, but I remember before I had my license my mother drove me to Glen's house to dig up his septic tank. I spent the whole day out there. His wife fixed me lunch and we sat out in the back yard and talked about life.

It's always cool when an older person actually pays attention to a teenager. Not a lot of people do. Plus, he was actually interesting to talk to. He often had me out to his place to clean the gutters, clear out the basement, clean his garage and other things. He was retired and had money to pay to have this stuff done but he "didn't like people I don't know messing around in my stuff." So, as long as it didn't require special skills, I usually got the job.

Occasionally, he needed to drive somewhere out of state to pick up an item or go do something (I really don't remember) and he would pay me $20 just to ride along and have someone to talk to. Easy money.

After I got my license, I could get to his house on my own. He always had something he needed to be done and I went over there at least a few times every week. Eventually, his wife got bored with the retired life of nothing to do and wanted to start a business. He started a video rental store for her to have something to do. This was the mid-80's when everything was VHS tapes. (Be kind. Rewind.) When she got tired of that, he had this business to run. So, I started hanging out there.

Sometimes I would spend the whole day sitting in his office listening to him tell me about life, about how to succeed in business, about how to woo a girl, about how to get the best deal on a car. I think he felt the same way about me as I felt about him. He liked having someone who listened to him.

And I really did listen.

He taught me how to tie a necktie. He drilled me for hours one afternoon about the correct way to shake a man's hand. He made me sit through mock job interviews to learn how to always steer things in my favor.

Glen had spent most of his career as a corporate salesman. He was a salesman, but he dealt in multi-million dollar deals. He closed deals with whole corporations, CEOs, business presidents. He knew how to read people and how to work a room. He believed I had the personality and the temperament for this type of work, but there were many skills that had to be learned. So, he was always trying to teach me.

He joined the sales team of a water treatment company that was trying to expand their market into our area just so he could drag me along. He talked them into letting me be part of the team despite not being 18 years old. Since this was going to be door-to-door sales, they did not want minors knocking on strangers' doors.

He had me wear a recorder on my jacket to record every conversation I had with a customer. I know that sounds creepy, but it was so we could listen to it afterward and he could point out "what I should have said" or "where I missed an opportunity" or how I could have gotten the sale. Sometimes, he would make me go back to a house where I had failed to try again. This always seemed ridiculous and scary to me because they had already said no. But Glen believed that until the person died, the sale was always possible. So, with his encouragement and a specific set of directions, I would knock on that door again. And most of the time, I walked away with the sale. He was an amazing teacher.

Right after high school, I moved up north and sold Electrolux vacuum cleaners door-to-door. Glen wasn't around anymore, but I did not forget his lessons. I had a reputation in the Electrolux office. This was said in a sales meeting: "If a person makes the mistake of letting Brett inside their house, they are buying a vacuum cleaner."

A few years later, I sold cell phones. I won Salesman of the Quarter for the entire company several times. I give Glen all the credit for me being able to do those things.

At the time, Glen was just the old man who I respected because he actually heard the things I had to say and he had plenty to say that was interesting to listen to. He was just one of the people in my life at the time. Looking back today, I realize that he was a very important character in shaping the man I became. Not just in sales, but in many areas of adulthood.

Thank you for your guidance, Glen.

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This month, I am participating in the A to Z Challenge. Each day this month, people around the world are writing blog posts and working their way through the alphabet. Each person decides their own personal theme. I am writing about people who have affected my life.