By John G. Taylor

 I got way more than I gave in 30 years as a journalist.

The payoff came as a Joseph’s coat of strangers.

In fame or failure, these street-corner saints and sketchy souls were the lifeblood of what former Fresno Bee editor George Gruner called “Reason to Live” stories, odes brimming with optimism and bruised wisdom designed to abate our readers’ daily grind.

Drawing out those stories compelled me to shed my introvert altar-boy persona, where “it’s a mystery” was a beloved escape hatch for nettlesome matters, and become adept at inserting my nose into the personal business of the wicked, wonderers, windbags and windmill tilters.

Reassuringly, the best of these folks did the right thing without being asked. Never said: That’s not my problem; I did my share.

They dared to vigorously and publicly care in the vacuum of a bystander culture. No locks on their hearts, limits on their time or shortage of life lessons to relate.

They lit me up, forced me to reassess my comfort zone and my commitment to public service.

They eventually guided me away from traditional journalism and into paid public advocacy for a nonprofit hospital system.

Here are five such folks I’d love to host for a long Sunday dinner – on the condition they were again okay with me writing them up.

·      Harry Chapin, musician-writer of Seventies fame who retargeted his spotlight onto easing world hunger.

·      Dick and Arlene Roth, small dairy farmers from Central Wisconsin committed to educating the public about the grit, joys and tragedies in their daily lives.

·      Mike McGarvin, a San Francisco ruffian who reformed himself and created Fresno’s Poverello House, a leading central California resource for the homeless.

·      David Oglesby, a retired Southern Baptist music minister who shed strict conservativism to embrace diversity of beliefs as he sought hope and wisdom in the face of personal tragedy.

They weren’t saints but lighthouses. They impatiently reminded that our lives are not just for us -- everything we do or ignore affects everyone.

They attempted to answer: “What have I done today for which God would say ‘Thank you’?”