People who change your life for the better.

If you live in a place long enough you run into someone you've lost. If you are lucky enough, you get to thank that person for making a difference in your life. I went into a Cambridge, Massachusetts barbershop of my youth, for only about the third time or so since I had relocated back to Cambridge.

I saw a man in the chair that, in about two seconds, I recognized as someone I had gone to the University of Masschusetts at Boston, some fourteen years earlier. His name came right back to my mind, Dave Pina. More suprisingly, he remembered my name.

We met at UMASS Boston towards the end of my freshman year, and his senior year. I was, at the time, just enjoying life. One day I was sitting in the Black Student Center with a friend who was a senior, during finals in May, when a dapper brother in a jacket and tie walked in. He looked so serious that I was compelled to come to attention from my couch lounging, as I thought he was a young professor or administrator.

He greeted us politely and asked what we were doing. We replied, nothing really. He then said he needed three volunteers to represent UMASS Boston at the Young Democrats Convention in Washington D.C. for the weekend. We told him we were free and we would be willing, but I being much younger than my friend, confessed to the dapper brother that I was completely clueless as to the world of politics, so I didn't thing I was be a good choice. He told me that the only thing I would need was a good shirt and a tie and a willingless to learn and meet people.

I was elated. I had never been to the nation's capital, and it would cost me nothing but my time. I was in. My friend was in too. So my friend said he could get one more for the desired foursome, and the next day we joined similar groups from other universities and colleges in Massachusetts on a bus ride to the nation's capital.

I was overwhelmed by how much I learned about life, government, and politics in America during that adventure to D.C. I ended up meeting Al Gore, Ron Brown, and scores of polically motivated young people. I have been enamored with government and polictics ever since, no longer content in my ignorance, knowing that despite my age, experience, and education, I had a right and duty to be part of the political process of my country. Dave Pina, thank you.