Self-Made Men

So, John Scalzi, presumably reacting to the flap about Obama's "you didn't build the roads" remark, lists all the people who helped him on the way up.

I'm not as famous as John Scalzi, but there are all sorts of people who helped me. My parents, obviously, and my teachers, both the underpaid ones at my decidedly down-market Catholic grade school and my public high school. I attended two public universities, paid for by tax dollars, one of them on an ROTC scholarship. There were a slew of helpful people in the Navy who turned a bashful kid into a confident, if not sometimes assertive and brash young man.

Then I got various jobs in the civilian sector, where the brashness got filed off. I got my first job because the administration at SIU pushed for firms hiring at SIU to hire interns, and my distant cousins helped by providing me room and board at a nominal fee. I got hired at my current job largely by luck, and kept here in part by help over-and-above the call from people who work for me.

In writing, I was helped by a bevy of people, from Jim Hines to Rich Chwedk to Jackie Powers, who are mentioned in my books and whom did what they did for no compensation at all.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
John Donne