Who were your direct personal Heroes in your life?

We all have personal heroes. People who affected us directly and changed the course of our lives, forever. People we never may have gotten a chance to thank in later years. People who we never saw again.

Who are these people? Your teachers, friends, significant others, romantic relationships. I'm not talking about political leaders who will never know they affected you or accept they have as you're being a part of a group. But those who have touched you directly even physically, who knew you, who were in your daily life.

Regarding family, my siblings, my mother and especially my grandmother (my mother's mother) were major influences. But I'm not talking about our parents, grandparents, or siblings. That should be a given. Rather those beyond your nuclear family and family in general.

Here is a chance to thank them in a public forum. They will never see this, some of them are gone now, but here is my chance anyway and the reasons I have to thank them for. I almost didn't post this because it's not a brag post. Some of what I say below isn't so great. I'm not perfect nor the best person I've ever met. I try always to be better, to update my life view. But it's all founded, as are we all, on our past and our choices.

I had ADHD as a kid and I guess I matured out of it into ADD, without the hyperactive physical concerns. But my mind still works in a not quite normal way. This has led to my excelling in many things. But it has also caused me, and others, grief, and difficulties.

For those few who saw something in me, who took that extra time and concern for me, it made my life just a little bit easier and overall, better. I remember after graduating high school, years later, considering who that was in my high school years and came to realize there were three teachers pretty much all the kids who knew them believed them to be the three smartest teachers in our school. And I realized those three were the only three who realized my potential and had patience with me and helped me along.

So just remember, you never know what you do for others that could change the course of someone's life for the better. Or the course of the world, for that matter.

Remember too, that in changing someone's life like that, we also can change our own. These are some of mine.

ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS - This is a difficult one to address for obvious reasons, but I'm brave and will do my best. I'll only mention a few major ones. I wish them all well and have always hoped they would do better after we separated.

--M., my first wife (yes, I had a few, see below). She was my best friend and we married (I married, she had pointed out that we didn't have to, but I had been raised Catholic, hadn't quite washed that out of my mind yet and so, we got married) undoubtedly too young (at 20). We went through our early 20s together and for that, I am forever grateful. We were a great match, until, as happens, we weren't.
--M., my long-term friend before, during and a bit after college. Never my legal spouse but I always credited us as a half marriage (not quite common law, not quite, not, and so I've always felt I've had 3.5 marriages) and she certainly deserves the credit. This was my most honest relationship in my entire life. Something I only realized in recent years. Even though we were both exploring our selves through our lives and through getting our university degrees in psychology, I wish we could both have been more emotionally mature. Especially myself. I have thought of her often all through my life and I know she was something extraordinary. Sadly perhaps other relationships after suffered in comparison. Not so much because I was thinking in comparison, but because I had seen what could be in a relationship. Even when it wasn't.
--K., my second wife who gave me an amazing albeit difficult to raise son. Actually exactly, according to my mother, like me...and it was then I began to appreciate how much I owed my mother for not having killed me as a child, but instead, found creative ways I could excel and she could retain her sanity.  We had a great deal of fun in the beginning. She met me when I was at a point of growing somewhat suicidal after my previous relationship break up. I was partying myself to death over about a year and a half, on purpose and with intent. I was growing more serious about questioning my life and existence when she showed up and ... made me smile again. While we probably should have ended things before marriage, it happened. And I got my son out of it who has been my friend and a became a stabilizing factor for me until I grew into being a father.
--C., my third (and final?) wife who gave me an amazing daughter. I had thought maybe this marriage would finally be the one to last forever. But I can see now that was never going to happen. Still, I gathered many interesting and rewarding experiences from our relationship and for a few years, it was a great romance. Perhaps because I was more mature and educated by then? Raising a son with ADHD (especially as a step parent), while married to a spouse with ADD, never an easy thing to deal with and in the end it, among other things was our downfall.

FRIENDS

Jimmy Snowberger, 3rd grade, he led to my character "Jimmy", in DEATH OF HEAVEN's first full chapter, The Conqueror Worm, available as a standalone ebook and audiobook.
James Snow, 3rd grade, he led to my character "James", in DEATH OF HEAVEN's first full chapter, The Conqueror Worm, available as a standalone ebook and audiobook.
Bill A. 5th - 7th grades (moved away), introduced me to Dave.

Dave H. 6th - 12th grades and beyond, a compilation character in my true crime screenplay, THE TEENAGE BODYGUARD.
Rod W. - 11th -12th grades and beyond, a compilation character in my true crime screenplay, THE TEENAGE BODYGUARD.
Curt W. - childhood until he died in the late 1990s, friend of my older brother and our family and my extra brother from another mother and father.


K-12 EDUCATION

Horace Mann Elementary School, Tacoma, WA 1965-1966
Mr. Llewellyn (5th grade) - Aside from being a good teacher and a decent person, my mother paid him to tutor me in math after school. It was a painful and laborious process. Even he was surprised how hard it was for me to grasp certain concepts.
Mrs. VanArnum (6th grade), an amazing teacher who pushed me and put up with me and set me up for better success in junior high school. On our last day in 6th grade, she brought in caviar (I hated it), and other things to stimulate us and introduce us to new things and played a 45 records for us.

Stewart Jr. High, Tacoma, WA 1967-8, 1969-70
Mr. (9th grade Industrial Design (Mechanical Drawing))
Mrs. Arden (Earth Sciences), just a great all around teacher. We loved her so much, the entire class held her hostage and held a kangaroo court about her teaching. At the end of the class hour, she was pissed off, but hid it well, and we judged her a great teacher.
Mrs. X (Algebra) - I'd love to tell you who she is. Was probably, she was older even in 1969. She is listed as "X" on purpose, because in giving me a passing grade out of junior high school with all Ds and one B (mechanical drawing), she made me promise her two things: One, never ever tell anyone she taught me (thus the "X") and Two, promise not to go on in high school to take Geometry (I broke that promise and yes, though I loved that class, I got a D,  and for two semesters. But I got through it, and never told anyone who my Algebra teacher was).

Holy Rosary Catholic School
Ms. X, I do not remember her name. She did not normally teach at this school. I had the principle and head nun of that school in my only grade there, eighth grade. I went only for that last year they taught, then returned to public school. Why, is a long story. My younger brother five years my junior started there in first grade until he died of liver cancer. Ms. X was a teacher for Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics and taught it to us in 8th grade. It was an amazing time and experience. I read 60 novels that year. My reading went from what I found to be a disappointing below average 280 words per minute at 60% comprehension, to 20,000 words per minute at 80% comprehension. But I settled into a comfortable rate of reading a novel in about an hour. And I was already a comparatively voracious reader compared to children my age. Over time I found that, even though reading a novel in an hour was like watching a movie in my head, I really did enjoy taking a week (or two) to read a novel, to savor it over days, rather than have it over in an hour. Reading dynamics was better suited to what JFK used it for, reading newspapers.

Lincoln High School, Tacoma, WA 1970-1973
Mr. Coe (Literature, 10th grade), was helpful to me in my reading in independent reading and literature classes.
Mrs. Barden (English Comp., 10th grade), saw I could be a writer and tried to invigorate that side of me.
Ms. Wooten (Civics / World Problems during the Watergate years, 12th grade). She actually met Zhou Enlai. She was an amazing teacher during things like Nixon, China and Watergate.
Willie Stewart, principle. Just an amazing man. He was black thankfully as we had the largest percentage of black students in the city and a very volatile time in our history, when there were still civil (race oriented) riots downtown in the hilltop district. Everyone loved him. Yes, I got to know him better than many, in visiting his office more than once.

1973 Lincoln High School Rifle Team

Mr. Williams, rifle team coach. I was on the team for all three years of high school though not so active the final year as I had a job as snack bar manager at the Auto-View Drive-in Theater I worked at since 9th grade. But when I became manager my time was limited. Mr. Williams would talk to us and tell us stories about his time in the army in Central America and just stuff about life in general.

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES. My mother always said to get the best possible teachers in anything and she did that for me. Because I was so active, she knew she had to wear me out and get me out of the house a lot to save her sanity... and mine. So I took guitar lessons (2nd grade), tap dancing and acrobatics (4th grade), foil fencing, and other things. I was also in a variety of organizations like YMCA Indian Guides, Cub Scouts and so on.

Me and Steve Armstrong Sensei day of my blue belt

Steve Armstong Sensei, Isshinryu Karate. Steve is gone now but was like a second dad and role model to me and many of us. I started there in about 5th grade. He had been a Marine drill instructor and based in Okinawa where he learned under style founder Shimabuku Tatsuo. I had to fight in tournaments and he started the first Seattle Open International Karate Tournaments. I met interesting people in the 1960s like the later infamous Chuck Norris, Ed Parker, and others.

Dan Delaney Sensei, his wife (bowing), visiting Lorraine DiAnne Shihan, and myself

Dan Delaney Sensei, Aikido. This was after the year 2000. I studied various martial arts in my life but found Aikido in college. First time I had a dojo nearby, I went and stayed until years later I had knee problems and gave up active training. Still, I am to this day on the Board of Directors for our non-profit 501c3 school. Dan had a stroke some years ago sadly and had to give up active practice himself but it still on our board.

Mr. Ekes, private youth gun club leader. One day in junior high, about 8th grade, I don't know what sparked it but my mother said, "I've had it with you're being gun crazy. I called the police department and they suggested a guy who has a kid's gun club and they highly recommend him. He also reloads some ammunition for the police and uses their gun range downtown Tacoma. You're going." He was an inspiration. In the actual handling of guns, I learned to respect and got over my fascination. Guns he said are a tool, not a toy.

Flight Commander, I'm on left, my First Sgt. on right

Sgt. Davidson, TPD & Civil Air Patrol, in my 8th-grade year. Our neighbor was a Tacoma Police Department Sergeant and CAP leader. CAP is an auxiliary of the USAF. His kids were in it also. They got my sister, three years my senior into it but she didn't like the military aspects and wearing a uniform. She becomes a flight attendant and is one to this day. I learned so much in this about search and rescue, aviation, communications, and flew small planes (also in my screenplay The Teenage Bodyguard).


MILITARY

USAF 1976-1979 (my service began in 1975 Vietnam era, ended in 1981)
TSgt. Pete Pettina (Fairchild, AFB, Spokane, WA 92nd FMS, Survival Equipment Shop, he was like a second dad and even told me on my last days in the service that I was like a second son to him.
Dan M., my best friend at that time. I'd tell you more but I could go to jail. Kidding. Sort of. I was also his parachute shop Sgt. though I think he was actually in the front shop in Fabric and Rubbergear (life vests, 20 man and 1 man life rafts, environmental suits, and Thermal Nuclear Flash Barrier Radiation curtains for nuclear weapons platforms (B52 Stratofortress bombers).
Craig T., my other best friend at that time. Again, I'd tell you more but I could go to jail. Kidding. Sort of. I was also his parachute shop Sgt.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Ft. Steilacoom Community College (now Pierce College), Steilacoom, WA 1980-1982
Prof. X - English Composition. I simply cannot remember his name but can see him in my mind. He was an ecologist and was building a replica of Henry Thoreau's cabin from Walden's Pond. This was my first professor to actively try to engage me to become a writer saying that I simply had to become a writer and he could see that clearly, because my writings "sparked with ideas". When I rebuked that belief and he asked why I said because I was terrible at the rules of grammar. His response was that was why we have editors and I should forget about that and just write. Thereby for the first time really as an adult giving me license to go for it. I owe him for that.

1984 University graduation with siblings

Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA 1982-1984
Prof. Rod Rees (Psychology Dept./Phenomenology Bellingham, WA), my departmental advisor. A massive brain who attended Brown University in the 60s and who's student think tank was instrumental in the famous shut down of that campus in protest. Through his guidance and advice, I learned so much about myself, psychology, the mind and brain, and life.
Prof. (now) Perry Mills (Theater Dept. Bellingham, WA), another massive brain and aggressive dynamic teacher who I couldn't get enough of. To sit in his presence and listen was to go on a journey into history and brilliant academics.
Instructor Bob Schelonka, Theatre Dept./Team Script & Screenwriting series of classes. He was my introduction to writing in this format and had a gentle and incisive style that led with humor and dealing with the eight rabble-rousers that we were.

Prof. Cvetkovic, Linguistics. Wow, I forgot all about sentence diagramming. I also took linguistics at one of my universities. "Alveolar fricative", that just stuck in my mind. lol

Fascinating stuff I was lucky enough to have an amazing professor for during the year I graduated, in a class that could have been dry as dist with another instructor. I remember he had an accent. He was passionate, energetic, funny, like a kid teaching something he was fascinated by. I don't know how I could have gotten through that class without him. My gf had the class with me and she agreed, he was amazing. At graduation he was given a professor of the year award or something like that to my surprise, and we both had to fully agree.

FILM PRODUCTION

Stanley Kramer, film director. Bellevue Community College. I took a serious of film production classes from him in about 1985 and only on Saturdays for a series of weeks, he was an amazing and impactful teacher and storyteller. Amazing stories.

These were many of if not most of MY personal heroes from my life.

Have a great New Years in 2019! 
And, remember those of your own personal heroes in YOUR life.

How about some positive news?

Happy President's Day! I hope you got the day off today.

First, I received some good news over the weekend. My short Sci Fi story, "Expedition of the Arcturus" will be published on 3/12/2013 on PerihelionSF.com. It couldn't be more timely considering our concern over meteorites and asteroids recently. And if I might make the bold suggestion, drop by their web site any time. It's a great "hard" Science Fiction magazine.

Now for the news....

We have gotten hammered with negative news for years now. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of it. Sick and tired of it.

Isn't there anything going well anymore? Anywhere?

Bill Gates of Microsoft fame, has released his Annual Letter to the world and it contains some insight as to how things are really going overall, and world wide. And nationwide here at home, because we do have some very good things going on right here. We just haven't noticed them because of the economic situation and political gridlock.

You should notice that political gridlock tends to occur during times of there being confusion about what to do in order to fix problems. The lack of ability to affect positive changes has come from, in my opinion, poor education of the leaders of our constituents and their polarized political agendas (basically, the GOP is stuck in their right wing, excessively conservative rhetoric).

Bill Gates in his letter points out that the Millennium Development, which was agreed to by all countries and leading development institutions back in 2000, have helped the world make substantial progress to improve the lives of its poorest people in these areas:

• Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• A global partnership for development

Bill and Melinda Gates have been traveling the world with their, "Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation", affecting positive change worldwide.

He has pointed out a few things we do need to do. One I'd like to mention here, is about teachers.

Teachers are a group that have taken a lot of flak and undeservedly so. They are underpaid and overworked. As Mr. Gates pointed out recently, they have not been given the same tools business has given to its employees. Rather than testing the teachers, why not give them feedback? Rather than berate and attempt to remove those who are there (and if they are truly incompetent, they should be removed, but they should never have been there to begin with), they need access to how to deal with problems they are having. They need our support, not our recriminations. They need information, not just a pink slip.

How do those teachers who are successfulat dealing with trouble students deal with the situation. Or in teaching a difficult or complex subject, how do the successfulteachers, teach it? Let's share that. Let's stand up and take responsibility for getting teachers the tools and methods they need to affect positive change in their environment, because their environment is particularly important to us as parents, as a nation. And as a world.

Another measurement for progress worldwide, is about children under age five dying. They are dying now less than before, the numbers are dropping. In 1960 twenty million children under age five were dying each year. Within the next few years, that will be down to three million.

Polio is down to just over a couple of hundred cases worldwide and may soon be eradicated.

Mr. Gates also pointed out things like the ability to have information at the touch of your fingers. Being able to sit with your child in your home and explore the world online. Think about that for a moment. Appreciate some of the things you now take for granted. The technologies and devices we have that make our lives easier every day have changed how we do business, how we live and how we interact with one another. Has technology closed us off from one another, or brought us closer?

Yes, I do see people I know less now a days, and we live further apart than when I was younger and I mostly knew people within a close physical distance from me. But technology has brought us closer together, in some ways removing that distance. I know more now about what my kids, family, friends, and new long distance friends and acquaintancesare doing, than I ever knew in the past before these technologies.

The wealth we as Americans experience and live with every day, as opposed to those around the world who are starving or dying daily, can be invisible to us. Yet, even those people's lives around the world are getting better. They are starving and dying less. Yes, there is still much to do, but we are making pathways to success.

For those who think the world is a horrible place, Mr. Gates has pointed out that things are getting better all the time, and are markedly better than only a few years ago.

To support his contentions, last year the Dalai Lama, as another world traveler who should know, has been saying this same things. That violence worldwide is actually down from years ago, even though it doesn't look to us that way in media and news. Which points out that we need to carefully watch where we get our news and information from, because media has become oriented through entertainment more than journalism.

The bottom dollar has become more important than the accurate, neutral delivery of real news. News departments should not be attached to a profit margin. It used to be that other departments covered that for them. That is one change that has certainly denigrated our news and information. But believe it or not, the new injection of Al Jazeera buying Current TV, which Al Gore just sold to them, might be just the sort of catalyst we need. Regardless of where they come from, I have to say I would trust news from them over Fox News (after their recent, horrible showing, in their consistent inaccuracies, during our last Presidential election), any day of the week.

Last year my own daughter returned from backpacking all over Europe, going to Eastern Europe to places I was afraid for her to go. Yet she returned safely and said those scary places were where she met some of the nicest people she came in contact with on her travels, and she felt the safest there. The most dangerous place she went to, turned out to be Athens, Greece during their riots with mobs and cars on fire and angry people hurting and getting hurt.

So don't feel too depressed about "Today" because apparently, beyond our vision, out of our line of sight, just outside of our available information, and in many cases even right in front of us, in our own homes, there really are good things happening. The world is having a difficult time, but not in every area.

Overall it would seem that efforts really are paying off and turning the planet into a better world. In many cases, without our even recognizing it.