If you’ve lived your whole life in one place, you have probably wondered what it would feel like to move somewhere and start anew. For more than fifty years, while I lived in my hometown of Little Rock, I knew people who had moved there or moved away, and they always made me wonder what it was like to start life over in a new place. Would I feel like I belonged there? Would I form close friendships? What would I miss about my hometown and native state?

These questions weren’t theoretical because before my wife and I married, we agreed that once my parents passed and we were empty nesters, we would move to Cape Cod, where she had spent much of her life. But even after my parents had passed and our daughters had graduated from college, we were slow to make the move. There were a few reasons, one being that I didn’t want to move away from my best friend. We’d been best friends since high school, and the thought of not seeing him regularly was almost as unimaginable as moving away while my parents were alive.

But life happens, and by 2019 our daughters had relocated to the Northeast and MAGA had a supermajority in the Arkansas state legislature. It felt insulting to have deplorables in charge of our lives. Fortunately, my best friend, who had the best SAT scores in our high school class but is the very definition of a Luddite, upgraded from a flip phone to an iPhone so staying in touch would be easier. That June, everything finally fell into place, so we loaded up a U-Haul and left Arkansas for good. (If you are of a certain age, you might recall the theme song to the “Beverly Hills” TV show.)

The term for people who move here is “washashore”. Do I feel like I belong here? Yes. This is a blue state, and I enjoy knowing that the values of those around me align with my own. Would I form close friendships? This is a work in progress, but it is an “it’s me, not you” problem. As an introvert, making friends has never come easy. What would I miss about my native state? This requires a two-part answer.

First, the quick answer is that I miss Spring. When I met Ellen and asked her what Spring was like in Cape Cod, she responded that the Cape didn’t really have Spring. Because of my superior wisdom, I assumed she was mistaken, probably because she’d been too busy in her youth to notice. I quickly learned that nothing escapes her notice, but it wasn’t until 30 years later, when we moved to the Cape, that I realized she was absolutely right about Spring being a big nothing here. It’s the complete opposite of Spring in Arkansas, where flowers, flowering shrubs, and even flowering trees bloom for three months. Calling it “glorious” does it a disservice.

The second part of the answer is that I miss a lot of things: friends, the food, the land, the weather. Perhaps if I’d left the state in my twenties, I wouldn’t still feel such a strong bond. One of my favorite Spanish songs is about an immigrant who longs for everything he had to leave behind. While I can return to Arkansas tomorrow, they can’t. That must make their longings more intense, even painful.

I’ve written about this before, but it stays with me: A retired college professor spent his career at prestigious universities around the country. When I asked him why he returned to his hometown of Little Rock to retire, he explained it was important to him to die on the land where he was born. I don’t share his sentiment, but I understand it.

This month, we returned to Little Rock to attend a family wedding. It had been seven years since we were there, and it was nice to see old friends and familiar sites. I hung out with my best friend, and I ran by my childhood home three times to stare at it and recall many happy memories. In a future post, I’ll write about my reflections on that trip, but I’ll close now with a highlight: attending the Sunday service at the Little Rock Unitarian Universalist Church.

Thomas Jefferson famously wrote that he thought everyone would eventually convert to Unitarianism. (At the time, there was the Unitarian Church and the Universalist Church. In the 1960s, they merged.) That obviously didn’t happen, but I like to think that if Jefferson were alive today, he would be a proud UU not only for the same theological reasons he held then that still hold today, but also because of the unique love and energy of a UU congregation. If you haven’t attended a UU service, I encourage you to consider it.

I agree with Bill on the clear and present threat of AI. And so do the leaders of the AI companies developing this technology. They must have sleepless nights, scared out of their minds by the threat their work poses to their loved ones. Why else would they cry out to Congress for help regulating their work? They are trying to save the lives of those they love most.

What is not discussed openly is that while the leaders of these companies cry out for regulation, their industry is pouring millions of dollars into the pockets of politicians who oppose, not support, regulating the industry.

It makes no sense to me, but I’m not about to ask AI to explain it.

Click on the link below to view a short segment of the 1-hour interview with Bill Gates. It is well worth 2 minutes of your time.

https://youtube.com/shorts/ubtWvzfZusA?si=5nAeEbgf3HmBl2f7

(A shoutout to Sam Altman, who originally founded OpenAI as a nonprofit to ensure AI was developed safely. Sadly, he is a weak person who turned the company into a for-profit corporation that would gladly do the dirty work for Pete Hegseth that his competitor, Anthropic, had the moral integrity to refuse to do. Sam will not go down well in history.)

We were interviewing Janine (not her real name) and her family because we were volunteers with an high school international exchange program called AFS, and Janine had applied to go abroad with AFS. Since high schools started offering two-week summer trips to Europe, applications had been dropping. That’s unfortunate because AFS offers students the opportunity to experience a foreign culture from within a home - and it doesn’t get any better than that. Somehow Janine understood this.

During the introductions, my wife and I explained that I had been an AFS exchange student and that we had recently returned from living in Honduras. We learned that Janine’s father was out of the picture and that her brother had personality issues, making the home environment challenging. While we normally would interview everyone in the family, he had made it know that he would stay in his bedroom.

Janine noted on her application that she was an above-average student and enjoyed reading, and when she was allowed to answer our questions, she came across as a nice young woman. She was upfront about being gay and dating girls in her high school. Her sexuality had no bearing on her application, and we respected her for being open about it.

Apart from the lack of hygiene in the apartment, the other surprise was that her mother, who was large and had mobility issues, thought we were there to interview her rather than her daughter. Her behavior was odd, and at one point my wife had to explain to the mother that she needed to let her daughter answer our questions. (In retrospect, it is possible that the mother didn’t leave the apartment often and relished having adults to speak with.)

While AFS wouldn’t guarantee placement in the applicant’s preferred country, they would do their best to find a home there. Janine had indicated on her application that she wanted to be placed in Russia. While AFS had limited placement opportunities there, we explained our understanding that homosexuality wasn’t widely accepted there and asked how she would feel about living in that kind of culture. I don’t remember her exact answer, but she was keen on going to Russia.

The interview came to an end. In my mind, Janine seemed like a good candidate. She was open, friendly, curious and mature enough to place with a family. Russia might not be a good fit, but perhaps a more progressive Baltic nation would be an option.

As we were getting up and putting on our coats, my wife remembered a question that we were supposed to have asked: Had Janine ever been hospitalized for a mental condition? This time the mother stayed silent, and Janine explained that earlier that year she had a breakdown and spent several weeks institutionalized.

Then Janine asked us a question that I’ll never forget. With a gleam in her eye and a smile on her lips, she asked, “What is it like to step off an airplane and be in a different country?” My heart broke for her. She was intelligent enough to know that she’d been dealt a rough hand in life: a domineering mother, no father, a brother with personality issues, and a backward state that didn’t always accept gay women. A life that was so tough that even Russia looked like an improvement.

Unfortunately, I also knew that because of her recent hospitalization, AFS would not accept her application and that the better world she dreamed of was beyond her grasp at that time.

That interview was twenty years ago. While we encouraged Janine to get involved in our local AFS group and apply the following year, we never saw her again. But even a brief encounter like that can leave a lasting memory, and I’ve thought of Janine many times since. I like to think she got through those tough adolescent years and eventually stepped off an airplane and experienced what it is like to be in a different country and have a new life.

Where is the moral outrage against this? Why are there not more protests and demonstrations about this?

Click here to read the NYT article.

I was a dorky 14-year-old when my parents announced that we were going to host a 17-year-old international exchange student from France named Maryse. It was 1973, and my worldview was so limited that the only French person I had heard of was Bridget Bardot, but I had a vague notion that all French women were equally attractive and sexy. While my younger brother wasn’t keen on having another “girl” in the house, I had acquired a refined taste for older women (at least in my daydreams), so I was fine with the idea.

The international exchange program was called American Field Service (now known simply as AFS). It was started in 1946 by Americans who had driven ambulances in European wars and who reasoned that if people around the world got to know each other better, then perhaps wars would cease. Makes sense when you think about it because how can you go to war with someone after you have sat down with them in your bathrobe at the breakfast table and shared a box of Corn Flakes?

They wisely based the program on high school-aged students because they are at a unique age. They are old enough that their parents will let them go out into the world, and yet young enough that host families welcome them because they will obey the rules of the home.

One might smirk at the idea that AFS tried to prevent wars, but what proof does anyone have that it hasn’t? Either way, it doesn’t detract from the unspoiled beauty at the core of the program. Put aside all the craziness going on in the world for a minute and mull this over: AFS is possible only because parents in one part of the world trust the goodness of complete strangers in another part of the world to love and care for their child. If that trust in the goodness of strangers doesn't make the world more beautiful, then I don’t know what does.

Maryse had a great laugh, an upbeat attitude, and was refreshingly free-spirited. There were already five children in our family, and she immediately became the sixth.

What probably had the biggest impact that year was the other exchange students that Maryse befriended and came to spend weekends at our home. As we got to know youth from a dozen different countries, we realized that all those names on the globe were real places our new friends came from and would spend their lives. More than anything, this diverse group of young exchange students taught us there was a big, beautiful world out there just waiting to be experienced.

Like all parents, mine had to make thousands of decisions, big and small. When they decided to host Maryse, they probably put that decision in the “smallish” category. It would be years later before we realized it was one of the most important decisions they ever made because it had such a positive, far-reaching impact on all of our lives.

If not for AFS, my parents wouldn’t have spent so much of their lives traveling the world to visit Maryse and the five other students they eventually hosted. Nor would my two brothers and I have become AFS exchange students to three different continents.

Since high school, my four siblings and I have spent years living overseas because AFS taught us at a young age that living in a country is more enriching than simply traveling through one. We also learned that if you can’t live in another country, then the next best option is to host a high school exchange student.

AFS is a volunteer-based organization. One of my volunteer responsibilities was finding host families, so I would call families I had heard would make good hosts. If the father answered, it was always a quick “not interested.” If the mother answered, it was often, “I’ll need to discuss this with my family”. It is sadly ironic that it is so hard to find families who are willing to host a student and have one of the best experiences life offers.

Fifty-three years after Maryse came into our lives, and I’m still in contact with her. Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten together for a few years because my wife and I have been more focused on the two AFS exchange students, Ludo and Jorge, we hosted when our daughters were young. Next year, we hope to travel to Europe to meet Ludo’s infant son, Guilio (our “Italian grandson”), for the first time and spend more time with Jorge’s two-year-old boy (our “Spanish grandson”), whom we were thrilled to meet earlier this year (that encounter is covered in the post below).

Most AFS exchanges result in relationships that last a lifetime and are life-changing. If you or someone you know would like to learn more about AFS, please visit AFS.org.

The second-most-popular tourist destination in Spain is the Alhambra, which is surprising for a couple of reasons. First, it is located in the Andalusian town of Granada, which is relatively far away from any other major tourist attractions or large cities. Second, it is the complete opposite of the number one tourist attraction: the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, which is overly large and architecturally over-the-top (feel free to disagree). Perfectly proportioned and refined, it is surprising that in an era of in-your-face entertainment and crudeness, the sublime elegance of the Alhambra attracts massive crowds every day of the year. Given the chance, Ellen and I would tour it every year.

It was in February of 2023, our initial winter in Seville, when we visited the Alhambra for the first time. A neighbor in Massachusetts had suggested that if we made it that far, then we should go a little further to a region called the Alpujarra.

As I’ve written before, very few foreign tourists visit the Alpujarra, but we took his advice and visited the two most popular villages, Capileira and Bubión. While they were nice, they weren’t making the ground shake.

Then we had to decide: drive an additional 30 minutes on the twisty mountainous road to the last town mentioned in the guidebook, Trevélez, or head back to Granada? Trevelez’s two draws are that it is the highest village in Spain and that, thanks to its microclimate, it is ideal for curing hams. Interesting, but worth an hour of additional drive time?

When our daughters were in elementary school (they are in their early 30’s now), we lived three years in La Ceiba, Honduras, a country that gets 1/10,000 of the number of tourists Spain gets, and for good reasons.

One of the best things in La Ceiba was a butterfly “museum” that was an individual’s private collection displayed in his converted garage in a working-class neighborhood. The first time I visited, I ended up staying for four hours because it literally changed my life, similar to what I imagine a religious experience might be like.

Prior to that visit, like most people, I thought I had a decent understanding of nature. This man’s insect collection was like a slap in the face, making me realize I was utterly clueless; nature is far more beautiful and wondrous than I had ever imagined.

One day, Ellen happened to be at the museum when one of our daughter’s school classes went there for a field trip, and two massive RVs, the size of large buses, parked outside. They were owned by two British couples who could afford to fly them to different continents and then drive around the continent for a year.

So here were these two couples who had spent years traveling the world, had seen more than most people ever will, and yet here they were in an insanely hot, dirty town in an unpopular country, and they had decided to drive their huge vehicles down narrow streets in a poor-looking neighborhood to check out a butterfly museum that guidebooks described in a short paragraph. There were so many reasons they could have skipped the museum, but they didn’t.

I can’t remember if we actually thought of these Brits the day we had to decide whether to drive on to Trevelez, but their sense of curiosity and exploration has long been a source of motivation for us. In any event, we opted to travel on to Trevelez.

Soon after arriving, we drove to the highest part of the village for the view, and were pleased to discover there was a cafe/bar there. As much as we enjoy Spain, there is one aspect that constantly surprises us: restaurant bathrooms. There might not be soap, or the toilet seat might be broken. Good luck drying your hands. So it was a nice surprise to find the restroom in this tiny bar/cafe was top-notch.

As we sat in the sunshine enjoying a ham and cheese plate, we watched a local, accompanied by his four working dogs, walk this pack horse past the bar. Other horses were tied up to a nearby wall. We looked down on the village below and the hills beyond, breathing cool, clean air. It felt like one of those rare, special places where you have a strong feeling that you’d like to spend more time getting to know.

When I asked the bar owner if she knew of any apartments in the area, she said she owned one right behind us. While basic, it was clean and solid, like the restroom in her bar/cafe. It even had high-speed internet, which was shocking considering we were in the highest neighborhood in an isolated village, dead smack in the middle of nowhere.

We returned to Trevelez the following year and spent two weeks there, then we returned again this year for another three weeks. We hope to spend a lot more time there.

When traveling, it usually isn’t the main tourist attractions that you remember the most - it’s the unexpected surprises you stumble upon.

Johnny Harris has 7.8 million YouTube followers because he does intelligent, in-depth reporting.

This 3-hour video is a combination of 8 videos he has produced over the past ten years. Parts of it are uneven, but overall, it is highly educational.

Did you know the US military made plans to fake attacks on US airliners and blame it on Cuba? Or that the US spends more money on our military than the next top 10 countries combined?

Spoiler alert - what you learn from this video won’t make you proud to be an American, but it will make you a better-informed American.

The order of Rey Frito was large enough for three or four people, but because I don’t have a refined palate, it tasted like any other white fish. But the meal was wonderful, the wine flowed nonstop, and our hosts were charming.

For the six people in our party, I calculated the meal cost over €1,800 ($2,000). It was by far the most expensive dining experience I’d ever had, but it was the norm for our wealthy hosts.

When they brought the check, and I heard the host grumble, “This is the worst part. I hate tipping.”

I felt sad for him. We’d just completed a wonderful meal; he had so much to be thankful for in life, including having many more millions of Euros than he would ever need, and yet a €180 tip was spoiling the moment for him.

While the €180 probably amounted to less than 0.00003% of his wealth, for the staff who served us, it was everything. It was the reason they worked hard to provide great service and put in long hours. These were working-class people who would have to work decades to earn what Jorge made in a year.

How much better it would have been if Jorge had seen it as an opportunity to massively overtip and make the servers feel appreciated and giddy. He could have shared in their happiness, with the added bonus of feeling grateful to be in that position.

He could wildly overtip every time he dined out, feel great joy in doing so, and it would make absolutely no difference to his wealth.

My father understood well the power of giving joyfully. When I was a boy, I happened to see his tax return, and it showed how much he earned that year and how much he gave to charity. I was religious at the time, so I asked him: if the Bible says a person should give away 10% of their earnings, why did you give away so much more? He smiled and said he was not good at math.

We both knew that was not true. He had tremendous empathy for others, a wonderful marriage and five healthy children, and made more money than he ever dreamed he would. While we never discussed the subject again, I can only imagine that when he gave away his money, he did so happily and with gratitude. He lived life well.

I wish I could say I have always carried this important lesson from my father forward in my life. Sadly, there have been times when I have morphed into a Grinch like Jorge.

It’s a long story, but here is the short version. I started providing financial assistance to a young man with a wife and two small children whom I met in Ecuador. The goal was to help get him on his feet so he could provide for his family. But over the years that this played out, his wife and mother started sending me texts asking for money. Lots of texts.

At the time, I felt indignant that they didn’t appreciate all that I was doing to help their husband/son. I rarely sent them any assistance.

What a fool I was.

Jorge has helped me see just how cold-hearted and selfish I had been. I don’t make the kind of money Jorge does, or my father did, but the amount these women needed would still have been a minuscule percent of our savings. I could have given much more than they needed, and it wouldn’t have mattered.

This post is prompted by the fact that, after a long period of no communication, I heard from the mother last week. She lives in Venezuela and sent pictures of their home and the damage caused by the earthquakes. She also mentioned her grandchildren don’t have enough to eat. Fortunately, the selfishness that had hold of me is gone, and I can joyfully assist her and feel grateful that I can.

It is the ultimate win-win.

Apparently, he just became aware of some data showing just how much further ahead China is in many metrics compared to the US, and it blew him away. He laughs as he explains that the US isn’t even remotely competitive with China, but the significance of this data is unsettling.

I was in fourth grade in 1969 at Forest Park Elementary in Little Rock when all the boys in fourth and fifth grades were allowed out of class to hear a man named Chick Hoffma give a presentation in the auditorium about a new youth program called “Gray-Y”. I must have filled out a form expressing interest, because a week later, Chick came to my home and sat on the white sofa in our living room to explain the program to my parents and to encourage them to let me join. I remember feeling so proud that Chick had taken his time to meet my parents just for me.

Chick liked being around young boys, and we liked being around Chick. First of all, how cool a name is “Chick”? It was way better than Mr. Hoffma. Thinking back on those times, what stands out isn’t that Chick was especially fun or special. He just happened to be the first adult most of us had known who seemed to enjoy hanging out with us. And when you are 10 years old, it’s a big deal to have a friend who is also an adult.

A couple of years later, Chick started a Boy Scout troop. I joined a different troop, but soon I started hearing rumors that Chick was sexually active with boys in his troop. He’d never come on to me, and none of the boys in his troop (one of whom is now a MAGA US Congressman) had spoken to me about it, so while I believed the rumors were probably true, I wasn’t 100% certain.

This occurred more than 55 years ago, so my memory is a bit sketchy, but I don’t recall ever considering whether or not I should tell my parents about the rumors. I probably assumed that if the rumors were true, one of the scouts in the troop would tell his parents. Little did I know then how unlikely that was. We’ll come back to Chick later.

My parents were strong supporters of public schools, but for reasons too numerous to go into, I attended Catholic High School for Boys for 2 years. Before I enrolled, friends would joke about how a particular priest would find reasons to walk by the locker room when boys were showering. That turned out to be true, but it didn’t happen often. My classmates and I didn’t consider him a pedophile as much as just an old man who liked to see young boys naked. If we had grown up in England, we would probably have called him a “dirty old bugger,” which I understand refers to someone who is essentially harmless.

My direct experience with a pedophile occurred when I was 15, while I was taking scuba diving lessons. I had gone over to spend the night at the scuba instructor's mobile home so we could go diving early the next morning. He was single, and that night he tried to get me drunk by giving me beer, which I didn’t like, then he showed me girlie magazines, which I did like.

When it was time to go to bed, I thought I’d sleep on the couch, but he insisted that I sleep in his bed with him because it was more comfortable. During the night, he tried to touch me, but I immediately rolled over on my stomach and stayed awake much of the night in a panic. The following morning, we acted as if nothing had happened. I passed the course soon afterward and never had contact with him again.

If you haven’t had this kind of experience, it is probably impossible to imagine the shame, the embarrassment, the disgust, and the confluence of emotions that prevent you from telling someone about what happened to you. It was as if it created a “dome of silence”, and my dome was so strong that, aside from my wife, I’ve never told friends or family about this incident until now.

My younger brother Jeff broke his dome of silence when he was in his forties.

It began when Jeff was 12 and a kind of “Music Man” and his wife moved to our town. At the time, everyone thought it was a miracle he had chosen our uninspiring little town to bestow his many theatrical talents.

I can still remember Rand Hopkins and his wife in our living room, sitting on the same white sofa that Chick had sat on a few years earlier, visiting with our parents and explaining the children’s theater project that Rand was launching. Over the next three summers, Rand would take a dozen of our town’s most talented youth, which included Jeff, on trips to New York and Los Angeles to perform shows he had created.

Twenty years passed before rumors began circulating that Rand had sexually abused many of the boys in the theater group. As close as I was to Jeff, and as much as I worried that he’d been victimized, I was all too familiar with the dome of silence and understood why he couldn’t talk to me about it. If Jeff had been abused, he’d put it behind him and was leading a normal, productive life, which couldn’t be said for other men who’d been in the theater group.

All through life, Jeff was the golden child. Tall, good-looking, life of the party, and for most of us, the kindest and funniest person we would ever know. Like many ambitious young people, Jeff knew he needed a bigger stage in life, so as soon as he graduated from Little Rock Central High, he moved to Los Angeles.

We were close and usually spoke on the phone twice a week, so it was frightening when he called one night when he was in his 40’s, sobbing with tears. His therapist was helping him work through some traumatic issues that he didn’t want to talk about.

He clearly was in distress, but I couldn’t fly out to LA until a couple of days later. By the time I arrived, he had pulled it together. But for the first time, some 33 years after the fact, he told me that Rand had abused him and others in the theater group. As part of the healing process, his therapist was encouraging him to tell the people he was close to about the abuse. This is what had caused the tearful phone call when Jeff couldn’t quite bring himself to talk about it. As time passed, Jeff was more comfortable telling people, and it seemed to help him heal.

During that visit to LA, when Jeff told me about his childhood trauma, I didn’t share with him my own experience. The reason was that I was 15, almost 16, when it happened, and I was old enough to resist. Jeff was only 12 when Rand entered his life. He was just a child.

Jeff and I never discussed Rand again after that weekend in LA. However, about seven years later, when my wife and I were caring for Jeff as he was dying from colon cancer, I asked him if he ever had revenge fantasies about Rand (I’d had scores of them). In his weakened condition, he just shook his head no. Jeff understood that Rand had a mental disease and couldn’t control himself. My brother and I had a sibling rivalry that knew no bounds, but his magnanimity put me to shame.

This is a long post, but we need to return to Chick.

When I started this post, I still wasn’t sure if the rumors I’d heard 55 years ago about Chick were just that - rumors. Sadly, a quick Google search proved they weren’t. He had a scout troop through the 1970s, but it wouldn’t be until 2008, when a man in his 40s who had been in the Chick’s troop and was sexually abused by Chick had a breakdown similar to Jeff’s and filed a civil suit against Chick. Ten other men who’d been in the troop also broke through their dome of silence and joined the suit.

The case went to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which ruled in Chick’s favor, citing that the statute of limitations had expired. (In February of this year, Chick was finally incarcerated for having child pornography on his computer. He was 82 years old.)

Fortunately, we can close this sordid topic on a positive note. While pedophiles had free rein while I was growing up, today, there are safeguards in place to protect children. One is mandatory background checks to determine whether an adult applying to work with youth has a prior conviction.

There are also public campaigns on TV that encourage children to report when they have been abused. While well-intentioned, they seem unlikely to succeed. The emotions that cause a victimized child to enter a dome of silence are too profound and too elemental to be overcome by a TV commercial. Perhaps these ads are successful in getting people who suspect children are being victimized to report it.

While the background checks and public awareness campaigns are in the right direction, the onus is on parents to be vigilant. While my parents were clueless about the proximity of pedophiles, parents today are less so.

When our daughters were young, they had a soccer coach who was a single man in his 40’s. He had apparently passed the background check, but he still made most of the parents uneasy, and we made sure that he was never alone with our daughters. It’s possible we misjudged him, but parents should always err on the side of caution when deciding whom to allow to enter their children’s lives.

I called Dale’s references while vetting him for a programming position at our company. He had worked in the computer department of a large state university, and one of his work references told me, “There are a lot of bright people who work in this department, but Dale stands out. He is probably a genius.”

That call occurred 10 years ago. Last week, while speaking with Dale, I asked him if I’d ever told him what his coworker had said. Genius or not, Dale has a better memory than I do, and he replied that yes, we had discussed it some years ago. When I asked him if he’d been formally classified as a genius, he said that he had not.

Dale is as honest as anyone I’ve known, but he is unusually modest, so even if he had been classified as a genius, chances are he wouldn’t admit it. But having had the great pleasure of working with Dale for many years, it is obvious that he is somewhere on the genius spectrum.

What stands out about Dale isn’t that he will read three science fiction books in a weekend. That would just prove that he is a fast reader. Nor is it that he is highly analytical. Many analytical people are far from geniuses. What makes Dale stand out as a genius is his creativity.

Perhaps the best way to explain Dale’s genius is to use the example of an escape room. Imagine a group of 10 highly intelligent individuals, each going into the escape room alone. With luck, a person might figure out the first few steps of the escape process, but the chances are high that, at some point, they will run out of ideas, admit defeat, and give up.

Place all the individuals in the room together, and their collective brainstorming will lead to their escape.

Now put Dale in the room. He’d start by using his analytical skills, but they’ll only help so much. Then it evolves into a process of thinking outside the box. If there were a microphone in the room, we’d hear him talking to himself out loud, saying things like: “Hmmm, I wonder what would happen if I tried this?”, or one of his standbys, “Just for grins and giggles, what about trying this?”

Some of his ideas will seem illogical, or straight-up crazy, but that is just how they will appear to us non-geniuses. What is so fascinating about Dale is that he won’t make assumptions about the viability of an idea. He just lets his creativity run wild, and because it is boundless, he’ll escape. Dale might or might not be more “intelligent” than the 10 individuals, but his creativity matches that of the entire group.

Ok, Dale has never been in an escape room, but escape rooms seem more relatable than the process of computer coding.

Many people have the mistaken impression that programming is a dull, linear process requiring little to no creativity. The truth is, it requires a great deal of creativity, not only for writing code but especially for debugging.

Average programmers will come up with a handful of ideas about how to solve a bug. Good programmers might come up with a dozen. But, just like individuals in an escape room, both average and good programmers will often run out of possible solutions before they solve the issue. In contrast, Dale is like the Energizer Bunny in that his creativity will keep going and going until he lands on the fix. Again, it isn’t that Dale is more intelligent than the other programmers, but that he is more creative.

During my lifetime, I’ve known highly intelligent people with remarkable recall, or analytical skills, or artistic skills, but Dale is the only person I’ve known who stands out from all the others. It is simply amazing watching Dale solve a programming issue by coming up with ideas that would never occur to most of us.

Every day I work with Dale, I feel blessed to have the opportunity not only to work with someone of his mental abilities, but also with someone whose character is equally outstanding.

I’ve been asking friends their thoughts about this, and just learned that Substack has polls. So take the poll below and see what other people think.

The poll limits the number of characters, so the last option is “No, because he is not close to anyone,” which was an abbreviation for “No, because he is incapable of feeling a close connection to people.”

If you think this question is relevant, or interesting, or whatever, then please restack it.