Turning into a dusty driveway a few miles outside of East Nowhere, Ohio. Truck creeping, gravel crunching, buying time, trying to figure out what I'm going to say to a high school teacher I have not seen in decades. I know the one thing I'm going to tell him, and need to tell him, and draw a blank on everything else.

   Start with "thanks," and see where it goes from there.

   ***

   New Richmond, Ohio is literally a town where the interstate ends; 20-some miles of four-lane coming out of Cincinnati melts into a two-lane scenic byway meandering its way up river. Meandering is not an overstatement: remember a river will never go more than ten times its width before turning left or right. And while you're at it, remember what it felt like to round a curve and see a Mail Pouch barn. You'll see a dozen before you see Portsmouth.

   Jim Crozier entered my life in mid-70s Ohio Rust Belt, and in too many painful ways, this flood-prone area remains very time-warped and Rust Belt stuck. Not alltogether a bad thing -- the values are very Garrison Keillor and lovely; it's just the economics that are ugly. I've long believed the reason George Clooney is on his way to being the John Wayne of his generation is that he grew up in this part of the world. He still carries the values, but make no mistake: this is a part of the world where you want to be from, not where you still want to be.

   Ohio has what's known as exempted village school districts; that is, if you have enough industry in the tax base, you can have more freedom to innovate and spend. Thanks to two huge power plants in that district, I got a helluva public education. Jim Crozier taught college-level biology to high school kids because he wanted to and because he could get away with it. And he did a helluva job.

   At a time when the river in Cleveland was catching on fire, at a time when muscle cars sucked down gasoline and a nuclear power plant was being built just 400 yards away from my old elementary school, Jim Crozier taught about connectedness and Silent Springs and ecological balance and being a steward of the earth. I absorbed as much as he could spring; the school ran out of science classes for me by my senior year; Jim Crozier managed to create a self-study program for me to keep at it. And keep at it I did.

   Really, to this day.

   ***

   Lots of folks get caught up in consumption. I was able to zen that thanks to Jim Crozier -- don't work on always having more, work on getting established to be able to live completely on your own piece of ground.

   The ex and I had that ground and we had the plans for the orchards and gardens and vineyards and woodlots and greenhouses and pond and all that Whole Earth stuff. So imagine my delight in seeing Jim Crozier's happy peaceful space -- the garden, the berries, the everything.

   "Stark Brothers sells thornless blackberries," I tell him at one point on the tour.

   "I know," he says. "It's what I planted."

   ***

   I showed up unannounced because his phone is constantly busy. I suspect it's because he's surfing the Net and I'm correct. The greeting is warm and we wind up having a couple of beers while trading stories. Stories about what it's like to risk unpopularity by believing in organizing and workplace rights and all that. Stories about knowing how to work with others, including superiors and wives. Stories about fishing, stories about knowing when to walk away from something you've always loved (teaching for him, the news biz for me).

   He's animated when he talks, just like me, and I'm sitting there thinking just how amazing it is that he's so much like me. And that's when it dawns on me that I've got it exactly backwards. What's amazing is how much I'm like him.

   Folks familiar with me or my work know about my mom (Edna rocks!). My Dad was another story entirely, a violent drunk and pretty much a no-show when it came to the Father Figure stuff.

   Now children of alcoholics often excel at school because they are trying to latch onto the love and attention they are not getting at home. Teachers and coaches (Jim Crozier was both) wind up filling the gaps. And today, on this visit, I get to appreciate just how much he did. How in the world can I ever thank him for that? There are some simple thanks I can offer, like for his telling me I'd flunk out of college because I'd never had to study in my life and that I was going to have to learn how to do that right quick. Boy, was he ever right.

   So it's very inadequate, but it's a start.

   Thanks, Jim.

   ***

   Jim Crozier retired young and looks great. He scarcely looks more than a few days older even though the calendar would say otherwise. He spends a lot of time fishing, and I hope to be able to accept his offer to go on a fishing/camping trip sometime. I may never be able to thank him in a complete enough way, but I sure would like to be his friend.

   So here's to you, Mr. Crozier. May the fish be large and feisty, and may you get to kiss them before releasing them back into the water.

   Good stewardship, you know.

   ***

   G.L. Marshall enjoys nature and water so much, he often goes fishing without a pole.