Oh geeze...

Strangely enough, if was my 3rd grade teacher as well... She was an old spinster who, for reasons unknown, took a liking to me... I remember that as a teenager she once caught me in the woods next to her house with a bunch of my friends... Yeah, we were smoking cigarettes and acting out and she walked back in the woods and worked me over real well even tho she hadn't seen much of me in 10 years... Her name was Miss Dial, like in th soap...

Then there was Will Anderson, an accomplished painter, who taught me to draw... I was like, ahhhhh, 7 years old... I went on to get a degree in "Painting anf Printmaking" at VCU's famed art school...

Then there was my Mom... Smart, hip, radical, antiwar and civil rights activit... But also into the arts and dragged me thru museum and museum as a kid...

John Taylor, a poli-sci professor at VCU who I worked for part time whoes office in the 60's was always filled with radical students arguing about this or that...

Bob Dylan, for making me want to quit playing drums and play a geetar...

Since those major influences I have been okay with life's journey... Sure, I could list lots of others but these were the biggies...

Bobert