Honorable Mention

A man I never knew from California has had an unbelievable impact on my life.  He has changed the way I communicate with my family.  He has influenced the way I raised my child.  He has steered my life towards a career path.  But he hasn’t done these things for just me.  He has performed these amazing feats for millions of perfect strangers.  Maybe even you.

So who is this mysterious hero?

Steve Jobs was a man who touched the lives of every person in this country indirectly, but powerfully.

Most people know who Steve Jobs was.  Those that don’t know his name know his work.  He was a visionary man who made a profound impact on life in this country.

For those of you who may not know, Steve Jobs was the founder and CEO of Apple.  He is responsible for bringing us the Mac, the ipad, the iphone, the ipod, itunes, and was a major investor in the success of Pixar Animations Studios. 

He was an innovator. 

Jobs kept his mind open, his ideas flowing and his private life private.    In honor of his memory, this article will do the same.  His story is touching and rare, and will be shared with the world over and over again in time.  But for now all that can be said is thank you. 

Every time I sing a song from Finding Nemo to my daughter, I will think of Steve Jobs because in small part, he is the reason I can share that moment with her.  

A Place I Love

When I was a child, my favorite place to be was sitting around an old cable wheel on a front porch in North Jersey. 

The cable wheel was a huge, varnished and peeling, make shift table with a hole in the center large enough to lose a soda can down.  It sat in between the front windows that looked into the living room of a small blue house with cream-colored shutters.  It was surrounded by three folding chairs.

I can remember sitting on my knees and holding myself up on the table with my elbows on summer afternoons.  From my vantage point, I would greet the mailman and say a friendly hello to the neighbors walking their dogs or sitting on their porches.  Occasionally, I would hop down and work off some of my childhood energy by running a stick against the picket fence running along the front of the house, or watering the flowerbeds. 

But to six year old me, that table was the greatest place in the world.

I would sit there for hours with an old man, eating pistachios and secretly stashing the shells in the hole in the center of the wheel.   Every now and then, I would climb on the table to peer down the hole and see how full it was.  We would get caught once in a while and my grandmother would holler at us to “Stop that.”  “That’s what garbage cans are for,” she would say.  We would just laugh.

As soon as she wasn’t looking, the old man would always stuff the first shells he emptied into the void, letting me know it was ok.

I would sit with him for hours.  He would tell jokes and make faces.  We would share stories and laugh together.  Sometimes he would take me to the park nearby, or for a walk to the bakery, but the afternoons always started and ended on the porch around the wheel.

When my grandfather got sick, my grandparents moved to a home requiring less work, and they sold the blue house with the picket fence and the quaint front porch.  And my wheel.

At the time I didn’t realize how much it mattered.  I had moved before and thought nothing of it, or the fact that they had left the old makeshift cable wheel table behind.

Now, sixteen years later, I know what a difference that seemingly insignificant piece of furniture made on my life.  That dried out and peeling old hunk of wood that left varnish chips stuck to my arms was my first lesson in what it meant to be part of a community.  It was a lesson in good-natured fun.  It taught me to laugh and to love.  And it continues to be a place I can go when I need a smile or a little pick me up.

I have lost my grandfather since.  The table is no longer on that porch in North Jersey.  But this place will live forever within me.