I got an email from Julia today. She’s in her mid-30s. We met when she was nine.
I vividly remember you visiting my elementary school to teach us about the weather…
Over the last 28 years I’ve met a significant portion of Connecticut, usually under similar circumstances. It never ceases to amaze me how many remember.
My parents recently retired and moved to Florida after 32 years in Madison. In packing up my childhood home, they found a stack of my goofy ramblings. I was nerdily obsessed with our word processor in the 80s and on it, drafted many poems, stories, and letters for entertainment. (Such was life as an only child in the pre-iPad days!)
Part of what gave me hope when I was let go by Channel 8 was hearing from viewers like Julia. It was the best part (the only good part) of being canned! It was a surprise to me… probably a surprise to my ex-employers too… how deeply ingrained I’d gotten in the fabric of Connecticut.
I’ve been a putz more than once in my life. There are people who’ve approached me and didn’t get the treatment they deserved. That pains me. I’m human. Not every day is a good day. No one always does the right thing.
Thanks Julia for passing this along. It is just as significant to me as it is to you.
This just demonstrates, yet again, that you never quite know what influence you may have on someone as a public figure, a leader of some sort, or as a friend.
I was a Cub Scout and Boy Scout leader for years, and am still amazed when some grown-up person approaches me and recognizes me as their former Scout Leader and dumps a lot of praise on my head. Hopefully I was also a good influence to the many I have not heard from.
My oldest son and I went to an Eagle Court of Honor for one of his younger friends. We had long moved on, but were surprised to get invited. The new Eagle Scout mentioned during his speech that my son had been a major influence on him at several times in his earlier years. My kid was totally gobsmacked at that, and still talks about the incident.
You just never know. Don’t worry about being a putz–I’m sure we all have, and in front of way too many witnesses. Just keep doing your best…
It actually demonstrates what influence anyone has on another. I have been amazed by people that tell me that what I do impresses them, when what they do is awe inspriring. You just never know how what you do will effect someone else.