The Last Lion and Me Tim Kubarych

Is it possible for a person to be the mentor of another, even if the latter were born twenty one years after the former's death? The conventional answer to this question would be no, but then, I have always favored the unconventional. For indeed, if one is to go by the definition of mentor, "a trusted counselor or guide," then I would have to say that the person of which I am thinking quite fits the bill. And that person would be Sir Winston Spencer Churchill.

Why is it exactly that Churchill, a man with no ostensible connection to a half-Ukrainian American High School student, exerts so great an influence upon me that I would not hesitate to call him my own "trusted guide?" Well, from the first time I "met" him in the pages of William Manchester's The Last Lion, I could not help but notice the many similarities in both character and behavior between us. We share an insatiable appetite for history and politics; we love public speaking and complicated, sophisticated language, and are so un-spontaneous that we must practice our off-the-cuff remarks for the following day; we are deeply dedicated to the Anglo-American "Special Relationship"; we read while enjoying piping-hot baths.

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