Wednesday, January 30, 2013

In praise of mentors


Having a great mentor is a really wonderful thing.  I think most of us would say we’ve had a good mentor along the way—maybe even several—who helped us figure out important things about our lives and careers, providing friendship in addition to guidance. It’s an amazing gift when we start to fulfill the promise of the faith they have in us—our successes are their successes as well.

I’ve been thinking a good deal about one of my greatest mentors lately, who passed away ten years ago last week.  Dr. Schatz was the first person who really made me feel like writing could be a possible career path.

When I was about 10, I began writing some NASCAR race reports for the monthly newsletter of the local chapter of the International Thunderbird Club, a group of Ford Thunderbird enthusiasts from the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia. A couple of years later, my parents and I ran into Dr. Schatz at the huge annual car show-palooza in Hershey, PA.   A chiropractor by day, he was the editor of the ITC’s Thunderbird Script bimonthly mag, and was single-handedly responsible for much of its content and its publication.  He told me how much he enjoyed reading my articles and asked if he could republish them in the Script!  An internationally-published writer at age 12? Yes, please.

For a club that didn’t have many young folks involved, Dr. Schatz made me feel that I had a valid opinion and always treated me as a writer instead of a dumb kid.  In fact, at the ITC’s 2000 convention, he gave me the club’s “Editor’s Award” for my contributions to the mag.

And did I mention that he played guitar?  Like seriously.  I have never seen anyone fingerpick like that in my life.  When he first heard that I played the guitar, he said that we had to play together at the next national convention.  And we did—at that convention and every subsequent one we both attended.  And it scared the heck out of me!  He was so good at playing, and I was so…MEH. But he was always very helpful and would show me new techniques to improve my playing.  Keep in mind: as a member of the ITC’s leadership, he would be super-busy at these conventions, and yet he still went out of his way to make time for me.

In short, for him, the club wasn’t about the cars, really. It was about the people; as much as he loved T-Birds, he treated them as a common interest that bonded a group of people together, across state and country lines. He made time for everyone in the club even though he had a full-time job.

When we got the call that he had died suddenly during my senior year of high school, I was devastated. He would never know how much I appreciated his help, how good of a mentor he had been to me.  In the days and weeks that followed, I wondered how best I could make good on the faith he had in me.  What I did was throw myself into my writing.  In addition to race reporting, I started to do interviews with NASCAR drivers whenever I got the opportunity and write feature articles for the magazine. The best way to pay tribute to him, I figured, was to not only keep on writing, but add to my skills.

Dr. Schatz has been gone more than a decade now, but I still think about how fortunate I was to have him as a mentor, especially at that point in my life.  I hope he is proud of me. If you’ve got a mentor, please do yourself a favor: send a little e-mail to him or her to say thanks.  Mentors are truly a blessing—we have to remember that and tell them while we have the chance.  RIP.

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