Sometimes, it does the conscience good to say thank you to someone who helped you along your journey. Even if it’s by accident and almost three decades overdue. But I’ve always run a little late.

Let me explain. A few months ago, I wrote a cover story for the Jewish Times on the UMBC chess team, which is considered the finest college chess team on the entire planet. Of course, as an alumnus of UMBC, I was quite proud to write about the team, even though I know virtually nothing about chess. And naturally, walking around the campus during my reporting of the story set off major flashbacks and a supreme sense of shock about the way my old school has changed.

At one point, I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, UMBC’s dynamic president since 1992. At the end of our phone interview, I informed him that I graduated from UMBC.

Delighted, Dr. Hrabowski asked me about my experiences there and I told him about my pride in watching the school grow since my time there in the mid-‘80s. Not one to let any grass grow under his feet, he asked me to write a short email note to him about my experiences at UMBC and how they transformed me into a professional. He said he wanted to share it with other colleagues and associates.

Dr. Hrabowski isn’t someone you can say no to, so I wrote up a thumbnail sketch of myself and emailed it. In particular, I told him about how after more than a year at UMBC, I was feeling down and couldn’t find myself (or a major), so I went to see an academic counselor at UMBC named Ira Katz. (Don’t ask me why I’ve always remembered his name, I just did. Maybe because it’s a Jewish-sounding name.)

Sensing my frustration and concern about my professional future, Mr. Katz asked me what I liked to do in my spare time, and among my hobbies I told him I always enjoyed writing. “But you can’t earn a living doing that, can you?” I asked him.

He asked me if I ever went to the office of The Retriever, UMBC’s weekly campus newspaper, to ask for the opportunity to write an article. My response was of course not. “They wouldn’t take me,” I said. “They’re real professionals over there.”

As I recall, Mr. Katz tried to keep from smiling and said, “Well, I still think you should go over there and see if they could use a freelance writer.”

I followed his advice and got a chance to write a freelance piece for the paper. From there, I became a staff writer and editor for The Retriever, and being there whetted my appetite for journalism. My Retriever years are still some of my favorite memories.

Oddly (and sadly) enough, for reasons I cannot recall, I never went back to Ira Katz to simply thank him for his life-altering suggestion. I met him that one and only time.

But the past always has a way of sneaking up and clobbering you. Last week, I received an email from, of all people, Ira Katz. A former UMBC colleague had sent him my note – which Dr. Hrabowski appears to have sent out to the entire UMBC galaxy – and he wanted to thank me for remembering him. (Mr. Katz no longer works at UMBC.)

“You can imagine my surprise when I read the letter and saw my name mentioned,” he wrote. “I wish you all the best.”

Now I don’t want to get too “It’s A Wonderful Life” schmaltzy, but when something like this happens, it reminds you of how much we all touch and influence each other’s lives, even in seemingly small ways. It reminds you that we all have a purpose to serve and help each other, even if the results aren’t always clear or tangible to us immediately (or ever).

And it reminds you of the importance and power of merely saying thank you to someone who, well, gave a damn. It’s so easy to just get caught up in the frenzy of life and fail to offer gratitude to someone who eased your struggle a bit.

I’m glad that Ira Katz eventually found out that he truly made a difference in at least one student’s life. And I’m glad I got the chance to thank him, even though it took a while and was by accident. Five presidential administrations, to be precise.

This is a “not bad” blog entry. Its nice to see a writer at The Jewish Times understands something about gratitude.

However, it is highly personal and self-absorbed, and thus is rather typical of the writing of top 4 men who have blogs here. Check their archives, and count how frequently what they write revolves around the first person singular and/or plural. It is also far from relevant to current news pertaining to Jewish interests or Israel.

For example, last week Helen Thomas exhorted the “Jews to get the hell out of Palestine,” and go back to Germany and Poland.

Thomas’s anti-Semitic outburst evoked nary a bleat from Messrs. Buerger, Jacobs, Rubin, or Feiler. This surprised me regarding Mr, Feiler, because last year he wrote twice about the minuscule Westboro Baptist Church. Andrew Buerger has also written about this “church,” though his silence surprised me far less.

I made the meaning of my juxtaposition of Westboro and Thomas clear in an email I sent to Mr. Feiler on June 8th, which, to date, has elicited neither a substantive response nor even a mere acknowledgement from him.

Here is email I sent; perhaps Mr. Feiler might yet muster the energy and intelligence to write something explaining why he hurriedly wrote both a regular news article and a blog entry about the Westboro Baptist Church, but nothing about the liberal sacred cow, Helen Thomas:

June 8, 2010

Mr. Feiler,

It is my recollection that you wrote about the Westboro Baptist Church twice last summer. Loathsome as they are, the Phelps lunatics represent but a very, very tiny percentage of Christians in America, and they garner media coverage precisely because they are beyond-the-pale outrageous.

You seemed to wrestle intelligently with this question of whether to afford them coverage or not in your blog entry of 07/01/09, and, as someone who is not quite a fan of The Jewish Times, I was impressed with your reasoning.

Thus, I am wondering when you will write about Helen Thomas. Unlike the Phelps family, who speak for virtually no one, it seems to me that Thomas blurted out what many leftists, liberals, and Democrat Party members today believe about Jews and Israel to the depth of their souls.

Stuart Sachs