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I think the title of this podcast could have been, “Greg Spiers – The Best Buy Next Door.” Here’s why. Some years ago I went to Best Buy for expert advice on an item I was considering. Greg was the salesman. Not only was he very pleasant to deal with, but seemed to know cyberspace from endless end to endless end. In our long conversation it turned out like ESP that Greg lived in the house a door or two down the street from my office. Like Rick and Captain Louis Renault in “Casablanca,” that was the start of a beautiful friendship between two guys fifty plus years apart in age, which continues to this day. Not only did the brilliant Greg drag me kicking and screaming into the computer age, and help me on my magnum opus about baseball and Jews. He met my wife, Lois, became like family, and watched over me with advice like, “Hang onto any railing in sight,” as I advanced from my seventies to my nineties. Not that it was one way. Greg sought my advice in his struggle between his low key outward demeanor, and the boiling anger in this highly idiosyncratic person against what he deemed to be the deficiencies in our society to which he would not kowtow. His views can be seen on his Facebook page. For example, Greg refused to do an unpaid internship to win an advanced degree which would have positioned him well to get a highly paid position in the field of cybernetics in biology. His objection was not money oriented, but because of his belief that the intern system took advantage of students. His posture today, fifteen or so years after we met, remains essentially the same. Somewhere along the line he met Carrie Schepker, then an aspiring doctor, now a respected one, who is headed for a starry career. Another example of ESP! Greg and Carrie have formed a warm and seemingly permanent bond in their years together, and prefer now to remain unmarried and without children, against the wishes of close family on both sides. Carrie, as warm as she is capable, as loyal as she is sure of her own mind, has become our dear friend too. Our friendship is a give and take between two very informed millennials and two very informed seniors which is of benefit to each twosome in expanding their respective consciousnesses of trends in societies today. Millennials will soon take over responsibility for administering the world with their very different and very welcome views on how people might get along better. I guess the moral of this story is that if you speak easily and naturally to folks you meet from all walks of life, you may find true friends from any generation who will expand the meaning of your own life.
People, always people!