I had many mentors as I was growing up, and all these years later I still remember and appreciate them. But it was my father, Clarence W. Baldauf, who was the most influential person of my lifetime. I didn't have so very many years with him; after all, he died when I was 14 years old and he was only 50. But the years I did have were significant to what I would become and who I am. From an early age, I was my father's enthusiastic audience---a budding news junkie drawn to his reflective style of comment and debate on issues and events. Child that I was, he talked to me as if I understood, and in time I did.
