Some people might picture community health workers as busy little worker bees buzzing around with surveys, checklists, and clipboards. There’s an element of truth to that image: They’re indeed active as they educate clients and patients about health care issues and connect them with appropriate services and resources.

But CHWs aren’t just names on some roster – they have individual, unique backgrounds and experience that qualify them to perform this increasingly important role in the nation’s health care system.

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It was the summer of 1957, and the way my parents met was like something out of an Elvis movie: a waterskiing blind date. My mother, Annette, a skinny 17-year-old, hit the water so hard at Denver’s Cherry Creek Reservoir that it pulled off her bikini top. Mortified, she hid behind her best friend Dee, who struggled to cover Mom while my 20-year-old eventual dad, Sherman, reclaimed her top.

Could you blame him for asking her out on a second date? And another after that?

To be that young in 1957 was to be hale, hearty, and invincible. They went to sock hops and double features. They went spelunking in the Rockies and took entry-level jobs with odd hours. Soon they eloped and started a family. My two sisters and brother came just a year and a half apart from one another. It was a typical home full of chaos and kids – and cigarettes.

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