We thought that by asking people to talk about the people in their lives and communities who they felt mattered most, we might hit some pay dirt. Instead, as with our first attempt at the non-negative poll at the beginning of the year, our List members responded with a collective yawn.

The summer poll question was:

What five people in your personal life or community have had the greatest impact for good for you and/or your family and neighbors?

Below you'll find the five significant people in the lives of those of your fellow Loyal Readers who did deem to respond.

At the end of the sample, please find our Editor's choices and our next Poll question. Enjoy!

Dear Rod,

Five people in my personal life and community who have had the greatest impact for good in my life are:

1) My mother, Mrs. C.O. Nwosisi. She taught me to stick to what I believe in.

2) Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka. I might never be able to understand fully his works, but I think he is a genius.

3) Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart. Another genius whose works are easier to understand. I knew I wanted to be a writer the day I read Things Fall Apart at thirteen. I think he deserves a Nobel prize, too, for literature.

4) Mrs. Ndidi Onyuike-Okereke. A woman of substance and the first woman to head the Nigerian Stock Exchange. She makes me believe everything is possible through hard work and strength of character.

5) Last, but by no means the least, my big brother and cousin, Mr. Onuorah Aligbe. For being there always and for your willingness to play the part of a father in our lives sometimes. Thanks for lending me your car and driver whenever I need it, and thanks for so many other things, too!

That's it, Rod. Have a wonderful weekend.

Regards,
Ngozi.

My mother, and my fellow Conservation Commissioners: all 4 of them!

I am n umber one in my life. I've done more good for me than any one. I try hard and hope I do a lot of good for my family also. As for my community, I co-founded a non-profit community organization (See www.vershare.org) that I can say with all modesty has done more for my tiny rural community (entire town population of 621) than anything other than our volunteer fire department and fast squad. Our purpose is to enhance the spirit of community involvement, foster economic development and contribute to projects to benefit the residents of Vershire. We strive toward our goals by rehabilitating an 1850s house very generously donated to us and making it our corporate headquarters housing several of our projects.

Our accomplishments include Vershire Community Library, the first public library in town, Made in Vershire Shop, a periodic store for goods, produce and services made by any Vershire resident, The Stage Coach Stop, a hostel open to the public in a town with no other public accommodations and space for free Community Soup Nights, Meet Your Neighbor Potluck Suppers, Children's Activity Days, monthly Vershire Book Discussion Group meetings, Vershire Wildlife Stewardship Initiative activities and much more. Our crowning accomplishment thus far is VerShare Community Camp, a FREE three week camp for any children of Vershire and surrounding towns offering excellent activities for growth, fun and learning, free meals and opportunity to interact one on one with six to eight young International Volunteers for Peace counselors. We accomplish this through a LOT of hard volunteer efforts and generous donations and grants. I am gratified to see the wonderful changes that have happened in my community as a result of the many thousands of hours contributed by my neighbors.

The second most important person in my life is my husband. My husband is just a totally good, decent, kind, generous, hard working, considerate man without any smallness or meanness in him. He brought a ready-made family to me rather late in life and they have welcomed me beyond expectation. My life would be bleak without him.

Third most important in my life are my sisters. Although we grew up in different families, even in different states, we have chosen to focus on our blood ties and strive to overcome our differences. They are the people I am most comfortable with and know I can rely on and I hope they feel the same about me. Besides every time we play Pictionary we laugh until we cry or pee or both.

Fourth are all the many, many people of my town who volunteer their time graciously and generously to provide the services we all so easily take for granted; the fire department, fast squad, select board, listers, planning committee, VerShare and Scholarship Committee volunteers and the rest. One of the joys of living in a rural small town is knowing one's neighbors and knowing we are each working for the benefit of all.

Fifth, but certainly not last, are the men and women that maintain our roads. Yes, those guys with the big bellies hanging over their belts out there making a mess of traffic when I am in a hurry. That woman with the frizzy blonde hair that somehow gets us around all the excavations and excavators onto the only navigable strip of unwooded land available and eventually back onto paved road. But more important is the sacrifices these same folks make all winter when there is snow and ice and they leave their family dinners, birthday parties, warm beds to plow and sand so that the rest of us can get to work and back alive. In between times, they have the joy of picking up trash and road kill (you know it smells good) to keep our highways beautiful, mowing the easements, cleaning culverts and grading and graveling those dirt roads we still enjoy here in New England. I appreciate them making my life safer and more comfortable and my commute beautiful.

No, I didn't mention sheriffs or police. We have no police but we do have a county sheriff and I hope there continues to be no need for him to influence my life or that of my neighbors for either good or bad. My greatest wish would be that the rest of the world could live as simply as we do here.

Rod, ol' boy, this is really, really hard. As Your President says, "This is hard work."

Two names come very easily, a third is there soon, and then there is a "cloud of witnesses" -- a large number of people each of them important in my life for various reasons. The easiest two are:

- Richard Jungkuntz, my first Latin teacher, and second and third, and teacher of ancient history -- and for a brief time, a tutor to me when I was bedridden.

- Ralph Gehrke, my first history teacher, my first Greek teacher, and second when we first read Plato, then a bit of Homer's epics, and a friend for eight long years of prep school and college.

And why these two? Because they were exceedingly gifted teachers, who looked out for their students' best interests in and out of the classroom.

- Maria Grossmann -- but it is hard to separate her from her husband Walter (when my children first met them, they laughed at the idea of "Mr. and Dr. Grossmann" and then I told them that Walter also had a doctorate, but "Dr. and Dr. Grossmann" did not strike them as all that humorous); I never found the words and actions to let her know how much I loved her -- and now she's gone.

- other teachers: among Professors George Huntston Williams, Arthur Carl Piepkorn, Robert Bertram, Richard Caemmerer (Sr.), Benjamin Smith, Nathaniel Woodruff -- then another layer with Rabbi Martin Katzenstein and Professor James Luther Adams and Professor Anna Shaw Benjamin; without a really good reason for choosing one, I do have to name one, and it would be G.H. Williams, my adviser for ten years of study at Harvard.

- Bernard Sabella, my friend in Jerusalem who -- with his brothers and sisters -- showed me the inside of a complex Palestinian family; a man who could have come to America at any time he desired for a rewarding carrier[sic] as an academic (sociology), but has chosen through the years to serve "his own" in Jerusalem as a Christian Arab. I knew his brother Anton ("Tony") before I met Bernard -- and I loved them both dearly -- but I have a deeper and stronger debt of gratitude, as well as tender feelings of strong affection, for Bernard and his wife Mary and their children.

Maybe this is all wrong. Maybe I should start over. No, this is comfortable and I will go with it this way -- for now.

R E D

1. My father, Mr L. N. Ray - Has done and is still doing much for community (Brahmo - not to be confused with "Brahmin"), neighbours, family and me, personally. Now retired, he has done quite a bit for small and marginal farmers, and landless agricultural labourers of my state (West Bengal) during his working life.

2. The late Dr Balaram Dasgupta, MD of Dasgupta & Co., a famous book store of Calcutta and occasional publisher - Even when terminally ill with leukaemia, he tried to help me in two major ways but died before his efforts could bear fruit.

3. Prof. Supriya Chaudhuri - Oxford alumna, highly regarded professor of English and karate blackbelt, she has given me crucial help in developing myself academically, even though I have never been her student. No less important, she taught me how to take the correct stance in karate, so that I am not fully exposed to the opponent's kicks. But I have been a bad student (in karate) - have not had the drive to take even the first level grading so as to move beyong white belt status.

4. Mr, Jayanta Sarkar - The first editor under whom I served as a journalist. Insisted on hiring me when others on the interview board thought that someone like me, with a B.Tech. in electronics from one of the IITs, must be mad for trying to switch from high-paying engineering to beggar-like copy-editing. My life might have been very different if he had not given me that first break. Also helped me later in spite of his own problems, even though we were no longer colleagues (boss and subordinate).

5. Prof. Algis Mickunas - "Papa" the phenomenologist. Has been a great support and inspiration for helping me keep up an interest in and involvement with academic work in the face of considerable odds. Has been (academically) a father figure to a large number of students around the world.

Tapas

Marion Kay
Rich Crowl
Schura Wallin
boona cheema
Chuck Atwell

I only have one: My wife, Debbie. She has put up with me through depression and poverty, and has put up with me through the writing of three books, which -- as any writer's spouse will tell you -- is worse than depression or poverty. And despite all this, she seems unfazed by the prospect of me writing yet more books. A saint, I tell you!

Robin 'Roblimo' M.
Bradenton, Florida

People who have made my local scene better? My personal life better? my daughters.
my niece.
my wife.
my mother.
my friends &
certain lovers of
things that matter to me:
people like you & others
who i have never
even met.
heroes?
no.
they are greater
for they are people
who teach truth
by speaking
their heart.
names?
i don't know
if their souls
have names &
it is their souls
i honor in their
suffering & their
struggle against loneliness
& cruelty & greed & cold indifference.
whoever reaches out in whatever way they can
to lessen the pain of the world:
they are the souls that shine
in my world & honor
those less able to
enter yet into
this light of
hearts so
very
full

From the Editor's Desktop

Though the number of responses was small when compared to our negative polls, I did find them thoughtful and revealing. I suppose this was the kind of poll question where one must reveal one's self and priorities more than most we've featured here.

I avoided even approaching this poll question myself until this very moment -- probably because of my own qualms about being revelatory -- despite the proclaimed transparency of my own life. Again, since (some of) you showed me yours, I have the obligation to show you mine.

Rod's List of Five (In order of personal chronology)

1. Ric Williams was the first White person I could unreservedly call my friend. I have always thought of him as a brother and, like siblings, we have and will continue to have our share of disagreements.
   
2. Sylvia Hallock was the person who made me believe in myself the most, taught me that I might indeed have a capacity for love and made me aspire to be the kind of adult that a young person could be comfortable around.
   
3. Lynda Day convinced me that there was love in the world and in me, taught me to laugh at myself and allowed me to be a hopeless romantic.
   
4. Steve Buttner, my first dean at Wesleyan, who -- knowing how eccentric I was going to be -- had to the insight to see that I was "perfect for the Watson" (Fellowship) and led to my leaving for Egypt, the seminal event of my youth.
   
5. Steven Bland imbued in me the commitment to be the writer and agitator I was always meant to be and see the value in what is now your World's Magazine.

Please take a moment to consider and respond, at your leisure, to our next Readership Poll below.

The G21 READERSHIP POLL

THE POLL QUESTION: What has happened thus far this year that really "rocked your world" and how does it change your plans for next year?

DEADLINE: 31 OCTOBER, 2005. The responses and results will appear in NOVEMBER. Thanks in advance!

+++ THE PREVIOUS G21 READERSHIP POLL +++

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