I am definitely the sum of my mentors. Some I sought out; others, as Shakespeare would say, were “thrust upon me” accidentally.
My first and most imprinting mentor was my dad. Dad allowed me to pal around with him in the garage while mom took care of house stuff, so I learned to solder, use a band saw and a table saw, countersink finish nails and apply putty, Sheetrock, tape and plaster, put down linoleum, fix loose doorknobs and cupboard handles, fix frayed rope, pitch a tent, tie down a roof rack, plan a vacation’s nightly stops and educational highlights, jump on a pogo stick, see using a periscope, pack a backpack, and finish concrete. My friend from work said, “I was not raised to be a female with equality. I was treated like a boy with boy privileges.” Me too!
I had various Campfire leaders, Girls Scout leaders, and teachers, but my next highly memorable mentors were Miss Hirose and Mrs. Ingvarsson, for entirely different reasons. I was at a ripe age in high school for some world influences. Miss Hirose was a refined, self-contained, bright humanities teacher who taught us about theater and art, drama and literature. She took us on field trips to art museums and a play in French. Madame Ingvarsson was a rasty, tough, quadrilingual French teacher who made us all hungry to travel the world and learn all its languages. She made us cook French desserts and sing French songs, and call each other Serge and Danielle and Monique. They both opened up the world for me and taught me to think outside Auburn.
The next mentor with lots of lessons for me was Mike Ryan. I played soccer for him a
for 13 years. It seems I picked a lot of rasty mentors. You could not get a compliment out of him. The lack of a tongue lashing was a compliment. He taught me tactics and skills and leadership and mental toughness and how to deal with injuries. Those years were a collision between Title IX and Irish Old Country Blue Collar Football. The way to deal with injuries is to ignore them unless you have to go to the ER. After I finished a long rambling explanation once about my sprained and swollen ankle that kind of hurt when I bent it this way etc., he looked at me and said “Well, can you play?” But he also had me work camps and clinics with him and hold leadership in many ways. He modeled old school values and athletic straight talk, and you had to obey and follow the game plan.
Mike Ryan led me to Uncle Nub. Cliff is a devout Christian who practices God’s love every day with everyone around him. He is a generous, fun loving, clowning, benevolent dictator who defines the end product and expects you to get there. He spoiled me, gave me many leadership opportunities, laughed at me when I deserved it, modeled silliness in leadership, and made me a part of a loving, healthy organization. I learned such important lessons from Nub about forgiveness and costumes and organizational cultures.
It might be strange to include Joe on this list but I have learned so much from him through the almost 43 years of our marriage. Many of my lessons about athletics and running and guts and socks and cutting toenails and hill-attack and self- discipline come from Joe’s many years of competing. And I have learned huge lessons from him about kindness and social justice and putting others first. Things that were understood and expected but not articulated in my upbringing were overt and spoken and confronted and protested publicly in his upbringing. He is a Crusader Rabbit for fairness and equity and kindness to others at work, in the neighborhood, at family meetings, everywhere he goes. If I could be so faithful to the principles of Jesus! His family lives positive interactions with every person they contact—the server at the restaurant, the nurse’s aid at the hospital, the guy at the gas station, the secretary at the school. Eye contact, truly seeing them, a smile, a kind word or corny joke— the behaviors that say, “I see you and I appreciate our common humanity. God loves both of us.” Lest you start thinking he is some kind of Dalai Lama, he is not totally perfect. But I have learned so much from his daily commitment to the world’s best kindnesses.
I see that three of my mentors come from athletics, and it has indeed been a central part of my life for many years. But I have also had mentors from work. Sandy Burroughs and Kip and George Ilgenfritz guided me with wisdom and experience in my career to become an administrator. Marilouise Petersen mentored me in HR— a strong, disciplined, brave, fiercely intellectually honest woman. And I had a wondeful mentor in Twelve Step, a hilarious, calm guide who lovingly helped me grow forward one painful step at a time.
All of these vastly different skill sets and leadership styles taught me something I needed, that I use today. The Camino demands athletic wisdom and world awareness. It demands loving interactions and self-discipline. It requires planning and silliness. I am well prepared for the Camino, thanks to my life’s mentors.
