Those who make a difference in our lives

In the tapestry of life you never know how important someone is going to be to you, or to those around you. Recently we have lost several people very dear to us. The last one was Bob Keck. He and Ann have been our across-the-street neighbors for 15 years. To know them you would think that they are some of the nicest people you’ve ever known, honest, kind and just “good people.” They, along with our other great neighbors, have lived near us enduring years of drum lessons, teenage pranks, new sound systems, various dogs and cats and slow landscape projects.

However, to our family Bob was more than just a good neighbor. We first met Bob and Ann when we wanted to buy our current home. We knew it was the kind of house and neighborhood that we could settle into and raise our family. He worked with us to allow us to buy the house and during one disastrous time, years later when we were faced with losing our home, he and Ann graciously attached the delinquent house payments onto the end of our loan, giving us just the reprieve we needed to get back on our feet. That may seem like a small thing, but later on it was the equity from that home that would continually provide cash flow to our growing business Village News.

Whenever I receive a thank you note from someone whose life has been positively affected by the paper, it makes me think of all the people who have contributed over the years, including the stockholders, advertisers, board members, subscribers, writers, mentors, employees, financers, readers, etc.

In that mix I have to include Bob. Just like in the movie we enjoy this time of year, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” I don’t think he knew the far-reaching effects his actions had on the rest of our town. It was too bad that I had to be out of town for his memorial service. I am going to miss him, like some others who have passed on before him: Howard, Don, Ben, Dwight, Eileen, Sue, Herb, Bill, Tom and Allison. They remind me of the saying “Only God knows the number of apples that grow from one seed.”