Before they had become my mentors, I wonder if the early guides in my life recognized how they might be role models, too. Of if they hadn’t quite yet discovered the arc of their lives, either.
They were each, in their own methods, creators. Communicators. Kind men fascinated by technology, willing to let it be a gravitational force. They shared their skills and knowledge, and whether through self-reflection or constructive criticism, worked to make things better.
And their failures and faults, when I look at them from a gaze of adulthood, are equally strong instructive forces, bending a bright light outward into its subtle contrasts.