Last week I wrote about a visit by Steve Jobs to the Governor’s Residence. A couple people wondered about the source of the story, so I thought to search my email and I dug up the 2006 message that has a few more details. Here it is “for the grandkids.”
Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:41:56 -0500
From: Eric Celeste
To: [various family members]
Subject: Remembering Steve’s VisitI just got a call from an associate of a 15 years back, Deac Manross, who ran into Dick in New York this week. Deac had a story to tell about Steve Jobs’ visit to the Governor’s Residence that I thought you might appreciate.
Some of you may recall that Steve visited us for just one brief evening while Dick was Governor. I was a bit starstruck, so I don’t remember much more that Steve at dinner and Steve shooting hoops in the driveway, maybe some of you remember more. This was in the NeXT days before Steve’s return to Apple.
Anyway, Deac (who was a regional sales rep for NeXT) and Bob Longo (another NeXT muckity muck, though I don’t recall his title at the time) picked Steve up the morning after his stay. Steve apparently started talking about the “most incredible” experience he’d just had. He described how at dinner and then again at breakfast the family he’d just visited actually gathered around and talked with each other. Talked about what was going on in the world and in their lives in a way that was, I guess, novel for Steve. He then got quiet, and as Deac describes, got a bit of an “engineering” look on his face. Then he turned to Bob and said, “Bob, how did you find your wife?” Within six months Steve was married! (Note, he had a child earlier in his life, but not been married before.)
As Deac put it… “It would be a crime if your family wasn’t aware of how your ‘family values’ changed the heart of a Silicon Valley icon !! 🙂 Who knows, maybe that’s what got Steve to do such great family films with Pixar !!………….and almost become chairman of Disney!! All because of the Celeste family ………gives you something to tell the grandkids, eh?” A bit overstated, but it does make you think, eh?
So, I just wanted to share that story. As warped and twisted as life gets sometimes, and as much as our family has journeyed since then, we may have had a butterfly wing of effect on at least one life back then. Kinda nice!
Love,
…Eric
P.S. The image on this post came from a MacNN forum post that seems to be gone.