(Written and posted 07 November 2009)

About once a decade, you meet someone who makes a profound difference in your life, someone who makes you feel good about life and yourself. These are the rare people who are truly human, who make us feel human again, whose self-depreciating wit, goodness, and overt optimism make us try harder to be all that we can be so that we can make them proud.

The first of these people that I have met in my life was my guiding force throughout the 1980s. Mike was, and still is, a friend of my brother’s, and I have been truly blessed to consider him my friend as well. I met Mike before I even went to high school, and he was instrumental in helping me successfully navigate the rough seas that are the transition from elementary school to high school. Mike, who is an award-winning journalist, turned me onto writing and journalism through our student newspaper, which I contributed to all four years in high school. Mike was also my mentor and guide through the dire straits that is the first year of college, a time when so many people get lost in the shuffle and slip through the cracks, especially in a university as large as the University of Missouri. I hope Mike isn’t offended that I have mentioned him, given that my writing skills are so much inferior than his. I’d be thrilled to have even a fraction of his talent and ability.

Since moving to Oklahoma, that special person was a coworker of mine named Bob. Bob is a tall and muscular man who looks like Santa with his gray hair and matching gray beard. His presence was felt throughout the entire office, as even on my worst days his wisdom, charm, optimism, anecdotes, and wonderful sense of humor always made my issues seem rather trivial and made me feel human and good about myself. Bob was retired from the Navy, and his stories about military life and real-life Catch-22 stories always brought a smile to my face. Sadly, he was cut-down by a tiny little blood clot, and while he survived the resulting massive stroke, he is now a shell of the vibrant person that I knew so well.

In March 1996, I quit the city of Little Rock and went to work for Metroplan, the regional planning agency for Central Arkansas located just two blocks down the street. On my first day on the job, the first person I met was a man named Johnny Dollar. Johnny was a journalist whose job, as he explained it to me, was to be the PR man for the organization. When I first met Johnny, my immediate thought was, "Grizzly Adams", as he was in his forties with a full head of brown hair and a thick brown mustache and beard. I had visions of him wresting a grizzly bear in the Sierras.

Johnny had one of the smaller and less-desirable offices, as it was cramped and did not have an exterior window. As he explained, he was in and out of the office all day, so he really didn’t need the space. Besides, he was just a mere journalist, not at all important like the planners and the engineers like me. I remember that on his office door, he had a poster that said, "I LERNED TWO SPELL WITH FONIX", or something to that effect. I immediately liked him.

That period in my life was very rough for me. Although I had already been married six years and my third child was on the way, my marriage to my first wife was already going sour. When I felt overwhelmed with anger or sadness, Johnny was always there to lend an ear and to provide sage advice. He always had a way to make me feel better about myself.

Most importantly, he re-introduced me to writing. Over the years, I have found writing to be very therapeutic for me. When I put pen to paper, or as the case may be when I strike a keyboard and letters magically appear on a screen, I am able to free my soul of its burdens. When I moved to Arkansas at the end of 1994, I lost my venue, as I no longer had a newspaper to write for. While I had thoroughly enjoyed writing, when I moved and had to stop, I convinced myself that it was no big deal. After all, I didn’t have to worry about deadlines anymore, and I had moved on to new adventures. I didn’t need it anymore. I was an engineer, and not a writer, and I needed to focus on engineering. Except that I am both and engineer AND a writer, and to deny either part is to deny who I am.

In July 1996, Johnny told me that he was going to be writing a column for a brand new weekly paper based out of Beebe, Arkansas. I told him that I missed writing, and was wondering if they might need another columnist. I was hoping to ride on his coattails, that perhaps someone as talented as Johnny could take me under his wing. That he did. Johnny introduced me to the Longs and Rocky and his wife, the owners of the new newspaper. Because I was a friend of Johnny, they decided to take a chance on me. For the four year run of the paper, the Neighborhood Journal, I was a regular contributor, and it made me very happy.

Johnny left Metroplan before I did, as he had been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to teach. While I was thrilled to see him be able to share his talents and compassion and humor with so many, and was thrilled to know that there would be many Johnny Dollar proteges in the world, I was sad, too, as I knew that I would not see him but every now-and-then. I had lost my mentor, my friend, and my moral guide, and the remainder of my time in Arkansas I drifted and sank deeper and deeper into melancholy. I also made some mistakes that I would not have made if I had had my friend there to keep me in line. You see, I can be rather rash and impetuous at times, and Johnny always had a way to make me thoroughly vet my impulses before I acted on them.

I wish I would have told him how much he changed my life, how much I valued his friendship and wisdom. Now, it is too late. A couple of days ago, I received a phone call from my protégé at Metroplan – Johnny died in a tragic accident. He and his wife were traveling on a dark Arkansas highway when they came upon an injured dog in the road. Johnny decided to rescue the dog from the highway to prevent it being run over by a vehicle. While tending to the dog, Johnny was struck by an ambulance that tried to swerve to avoid him but couldn’t. Despite efforts to save him, he died en route to the hospital.

Johnny unselfishly and without reservation sacrificed his life so that another of God’s creatures could live. He is a hero, and I have been blessed to have known him. He is with God and the angels in heaven now, and I pray that when the time comes that I pass from this earth, I am worthy enough to see him again.