Dan Kempner
Editor, Legacy Magazine

“Embrace all men,” reads one of the most profound tenets of Mentor, Discover, Inspire’s (MDI) Code of Honor.

God, how I hate that tenet.

There was the guy who sat with eyes closed, listening to everything that was said, and murmering, “yes, yes!” followed by some boilerplate platitude from the Men’s Weekend. Christ, I hated that dude. Am I supposed to embrace him?

Then there was the guy who was so insecure he always led with his resume. “Yeah, back when I was teaching at Harvard – that’s when I was working on a project with Larry Summers, before he was Secretary of the Treasury, but he still introduced me to Bill Clinton who at that time was just a small-time Governer and I said to him, ‘Bill, I’m writing a book about…'” blah, blah, blah. Jesus, he was irritating.

Oh yeah, that crazy guy who used to write a song and perform it for us every week. Not that he was bad, and not that he couldn’t sing – he could – and not that his lyrics weren’t deep, but come on! Sing a song for us every week?

He reminds me of that quack who used to remember all the Code of Honor tenets and insist that they be recited in order, by number. I’m mean, really?

Or my favorite, they man who used to come to every meeting with a list of men he had invited to a meeting, more or less men he’d swept up from under a bridge. What was with that guy?

I didn’t want to be near most of those guys let alone ’embrace’ them. I mean, let’s face it, only a handful of those losers ever actually joined a team – although one of them turned out to be our Team Leader and eventually ran the Region. We’re really tight now, as a matter of fact. But those other dudes?

The resume guy he… well, once we pointed out that precadillo, he turned out to be a damn good teammate. We used to drive to Division meetings together and it was always fun, he had a great sense of humor and…

Well anyway, after I learned the Code of Honor by heart from that other nerd, although I had to grit my teeth, I managed to warm up to the song-a-week guy. He’s got an album out now that I hear is doing well, so I guess he did alright.

But Jesus, how I hate that particular tenet. Yuck!