The Mentor

When I was a child I had a mentor.  Well not really, mentor is a word that conjurers up an image of an apprentice working with a powerful wizard.  In reality it was more like a person that feels special to you for an unknown reason.  There was just something about that person that seemed to sit right.  Maybe they listened, maybe they didn't.  Maybe it was just a person that even though I never asked anything from them, they made me feel secure.  They made me feel important or valued in some way.  In my case they were friends of my parents who in some way through my contact with them made me feel important in their eyes.

Ken Piper

Nearly as far back as I can remember I knew a wonderful man.  He seemed seven feet tall and had a body four feet wide.  His head was bald and he had a smile and a laugh as deep as a geyser billowing steam.  He used to give me books or records when I was small and as I grew older he would take me to school.  He lived with us for awhile while his life was in transition.  I still remember waking up and having breakfast with him, both of us standing up in the kitchen.  He loved to eat peanut butter and toast.  He loved even more slabbing a slice with the gooey spread and then calling my dog Tessie over.  He would show her the toast and when the dogs eyes were about to explode he would reach down and just as she opened her mouth slap the toast on the roof of her mouth.  The resulting efforts of the dog trying helplessly to free the peanut butter would send him nearly into convulsions.  His laugh would bounce off the ceiling and tears would roll down his eyes.  I loved Ken Piper.  I loved to watch football with him on a Sunday morning.  Seldom he would make it into the second half before falling into a deep sleep a snore billowing out with each heave of his chest.

I was at college when my parents called me and told me he passed.  I was sitting in my apartment largely void of furniture at a desk made from card board boxes and a hollow door.  How I cried... tears flowed like never before.  When Ken died for some disconnected reason I felt like I lost my best friend. I still have his golf putter although I don't play golf.  Forever it will be the Piper putter.

I wonder where my son will find his mentors, his special people.  I am not such a social person and one of my great failings is not to have so many so close.  I have a few special friends but regrettably they are far away and not able to be part of day to day life.  I think as adults we have no idea how much power and influence we have over the lives of a young person.  We think we are incidental but in their eyes we are not.  Kindness and caring while seemingly momentary to us can paint a stripe across their lives that lasts forever.  For this reason I envy teachers.  For the most receptive students under their purview they can have an impact that will last for the rest of their lives.  As human beings with a temporal existence in this world we often desire to leave a mark that will outlast ourselves.  To be remembered with love in the eyes of a child is truly a wonderful gift.