People sometimes ask how a kid from St. Joseph, Missouri ended up working in Hollywood,

studying in Mexico, traveling around the world, winning speech competitions, writing

books, and spending a lifetime telling stories.

For years, I assumed the answer was curiosity, hard work, luck, or simply saying yes

whenever adventure knocked.

Looking back, I think I was wrong.

The answer began two blocks from my house on Lovers Lane.

My father was a small-town veterinarian. Everywhere we went, someone knew him.

They’d wave from across a grocery store, stop him in a parking lot, or strike up a

conversation at the gas station. Dad loved that. To him, it wasn’t about being recognized.

It meant he’d earned people’s trust.

My mother built a different kind of reputation. She was an exceptionally talented interior

designer who helped transform many of St. Joseph’s most beautiful homes. She could

walk into an empty room and imagine possibilities that others couldn’t yet see.

Without realizing it, I was growing up surrounded by two kinds of creativity: one that

healed and one that inspired.

Then every morning, I walked two blocks to Eugene Field Elementary School.

It never occurred to me that I was walking into one of the most important chapters of my

life.

Our principal was Dorothy Cronkite, younger sister of Walter Cronkite. Every evening,

America watched Walter calmly guide the nation through some of history’s defining

moments—the Moon landing, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Dr.

Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert Kennedy, wars, triumphs, heartbreak, and

hope.

Meanwhile, two blocks from my house, his sister was quietly helping shape another

generation of children.One informed a nation.

The other helped build one.

Our teachers taught us reading, writing, arithmetic, and history, but they also taught us

something much harder to measure.

Curiosity.

We studied Eugene Field, the writer and poet whose name our school proudly carried. As

children we memorized “Little Boy Blue.” Years later, I discovered his poem “Lovers

Lane, Saint Jo.” Suddenly the very street where I rode my bicycle, played football, and

walked home from school had become literature. History wasn’t somewhere else. It had

been living beneath my feet all along.

We learned about Jesse James, the Pony Express, riverboats, Native American history,

and the founding of St. Joseph. We stood in front of our classmates and gave

presentations. Without realizing it, we were learning to think, to communicate, and to

stand confidently before an audience.

One teacher noticed I had a knack for making wisecracks. Instead of telling me to tone it

down, she handed me a George Carlin record and asked me to perform part of one of his

monologues for the class. Looking back, I laugh thinking about it. I’m not sure every

parent would have approved. But that teacher wasn’t encouraging controversy. She saw

something in me before I saw it in myself. She was helping me discover my own voice.

Those moments mattered.

So did the ordinary ones.

I remember scraping my knees playing baseball on the concrete playground at Eugene

Field. I remember running behind mosquito trucks as they filled the streets with thick

clouds of pesticide fog that we now know was dangerous. None of our parents thought

twice about it because no one knew then what we know now. We climbed impossibly

high diving boards, rode our bikes for miles, left our front doors unlocked, and spent

nearly every waking hour outside.

We didn’t grow up hiding from the world.We grew up meeting it.

Public school welcomed every child who walked through its doors. Some of my closest

friends attended Christian schools, and we never spent time debating which school was

better. We talked about girls, bowled at Olympia Lanes, played sports, laughed until our

sides hurt, and simply enjoyed growing up together in the same community.

My own path happened to be through St. Joseph’s public schools, and what those schools

gave me reached far beyond academics.

An eighth-grade Spanish class eventually led me to study in Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico,

where another culture forever expanded my understanding of the world.

A speech teacher recognized something in my voice and encouraged me to compete. I

won local and regional tournaments before advancing to the state competition. I didn’t

win state, but I found confidence I didn’t know I possessed.

A filmmaking class—almost unheard of in a high school during the mid-1970s—

introduced me to Super 8 cameras, storytelling, and creativity. My friend Jay Kerner and

I made silent movies while a teacher synchronized music from a tape recorder with the

projector. I had no idea those little films were quietly preparing me for a lifetime in the

entertainment industry.

Sports became another classroom.

Basketball.

Football.

Cross country.

Golf.

Even cheerleading during my senior year.

Those experiences took us across Missouri, introduced us to new communities, taught us

discipline, resilience, teamwork, and how to compete with both confidence and humility.

They also introduced me to remarkable people, including future US Open golf

professional Payne Stewart, long before the world knew just how extraordinary he would

become.Looking back, I don’t think my public education prepared me for Hollywood.

I think it prepared me for life.

Today we often measure schools by test scores, budgets, rankings, and graduation rates.

Those things matter. But they don’t tell the whole story.

Schools introduce children to possibilities they cannot yet imagine.

Teachers notice gifts that children haven’t yet discovered.

Coaches build confidence.

Librarians open worlds.

Music teachers awaken creativity.

Speech teachers help students find their voices.

History teachers quietly connect young people to something larger than themselves.

No one at Eugene Field knew where my life would lead.

Neither did I.

That’s why communities invest in children.

Not because we know who they’ll become.

Because we don’t.

Every one of us has an opening scene.

Mine happened to begin on Lovers Lane.

Yours began somewhere too.

Maybe the greatest investment a community can ever make isn’t simply in its schools.It’s in the curiosity, confidence, courage, and character of the children walking through

their doors each morning—children whose greatest adventures haven’t yet been written.