How Did I Get So Lucky?

On October, 2026 By Peter WatkinsIn 20262 Comments

Dear Will:

As I think I may have told you a time or two, I am one of seven children, all born during a stretch of ten years or so, an incomprehensible feat of reproduction that has since been proven theoretically impossible by science. Now consider that I grew up in a “traditional,” single-income household in which my father went off to work each day while my mother managed the home. My siblings tell me that in the early years there was some hired help, but to be honest, I don’t remember that at all. As far as my memory goes, it was just Mom and the seven of us until Dad came home from work. Imagine.

In those days, each Sunday we all went off to church together, which is to say, my mother and the seven of us went off to church together while my dad, perhaps sensing the possibilities on the other end of the drive, stayed behind, alone in a quiet house. Now maybe you’re thinking: “Well, the seven of you must have been little angels then.” And if you’re thinking that, clearly you have never been in the same room with us, because if you had, you would know, and testify with conviction if called upon, that we were anything but angels there on that crowded pew (or anywhere else, for that matter). How in the world did a 5-foot-3-inch angel-mother manage all of us demons singlehandedly during worship services? It should not have been physically possible. (The science, for now, remains inconclusive.)

From the second through the eighth grade, I lived with my family in Redlands, California, on a street that was teeming with children, many of them my age or close to it. So during the summer months, after we finished our chores we would scatter around the neighborhood to play with our friends. My mother just turned us loose with the understanding that when she called, we would come right home. But there were no cell phones in those days, so rather than “call” us, my mom would simply whistle. With just her thumb and one finger she could produce a siren that could be heard blocks away all over the neighborhood. I’ve never learned to match it.

Due in no small part to her Wyoming upbringing, much of my mother’s daily activity was oriented around feeding the hoard. (She was one of nine children, her father one of 16, so massive meals were a necessary daily preoccupation.) Every day, we ate a hot breakfast and dinner together—all nine of us, when possible. Breakfast might include pancakes, fried eggs, and bacon, and yet when we were done and ready to blast out the door to school, she had sack lunches ready for each of us. Dinner included a number of go-tos: fried chicken, roast beef, chicken-fried steak, always accompanied with potatoes or rice and vegetables or salad or whatever. Real meals, in other words, enough for nine. Day after day. Think of it and you’ll agree with me: Not actually possible. Not possible at all.

During breakfast, my mother would work the griddle while we ate. We were kids who eventually grew into teenagers, so you might safely surmise that this was largely thankless work, taken for granted and sometimes criticized. (Shameful.) Nevertheless, I have a mental image of her sitting during dinner at one end of the table, delighted with the chaos all around her. There would be multiple, often inappropriate conversations going at once, each one growing in volume in order to be heard above the din. The pandemonium would include fights, accusations, recriminations, and discipline. Eventually my elder brother would tire of it all and beg to be released on his own recognizance, while my father, looking on in amusement, would just shake his head: “If only I had been an alligator,” he sometimes mused. “I could have eaten the eggs.” My mother, for her part, would look over her irreverent brood and just beam.

There is so much more that I could tell you about that madcap household—the drama, the tension, the difficulties common to any family. But these are the images that linger: security and freedom, nurturing and belonging, laughter and love. So many of the details seem unlikely, in retrospect. Incomprehensible. Impossible even. And yet it all happened. I know because I was there. I think of it now, and there is one salient detail that remains hardest of all for me to understand: How did I get so lucky?

GPT-5 Writes a Letter to Will

On October, 2025October, 2025 By Peter WatkinsIn 2025Leave a comment

Dear Will:

It might not surprise you to learn that I’m a bit of a skeptic when it comes to large language models like ChatGPT. Without much encouragement, I can give an eloquent speech about its likely negative impact on the quality of thought and interpersonal communication in the years to come. If you’re interested in hearing a version of that speech, you can even watch this video from an interview I gave last year.

But look: I realize that there is no stopping the A.I. wave from crashing on the shore. It already feels like we are at high tide, in fact, with a tsunami cresting somewhere over the near horizon. At work the inundation is largely complete, with A.I. access incorporated into virtually every piece of software we interact with over the course of a business day. We are encouraged—mandated almost—to play with our new A.I. toys and see what they can do. It’s a smart exercise, and I’ve encouraged my team—mandated, actually—that they go all in and figure out how A.I. can help them with their work.

So it is that finally, tonight, I have followed through on an idea that struck me many months ago: I asked A.I. (Copilot, to be specific, using GPT-5) to compose my next letter to you. Here is the prompt I gave it:

I write a blog that can be found at http://www.letterstowill.com. Review every entry ever made on that site. It will give you a sense of both my writing style and the common themes and approaches I take when I write a post. Note that I strive to maintain a fairly positive tone with an upbeat “message” for my readers. Then compose the next post for the site. Choose a theme that is timely and that will likely appeal to those who regularly read my blog.

The machine did a pretty good job. (I did make a mistake in not limiting the word-count, however, so it’s about twice as long as my typical letter to you.) If you’re curious, I’ll paste GPT-5’s letter to you at the end of this letter. But first, some observations:

Copilot led with a flattering and disarming commentary on my work. A smart piece of human manipulation, that.
It then completely fabricated several interactions I ostensibly had at the grocery store while suggesting that I have a thing for marshmallows (I don’t).
It plagiarized me liberally (as you would expect) without providing appropriate hyperlinks or attribution. Given that there were several lovely turns of phrase that were not mine (“If you’re going to bless someone, use the big ladle,” for instance) it left me wondering who else it had borrowed from without citation.
It concluded with some suggestions for further enhancements which, given the contrived nature of the entire letter, seemed to me especially creepy.

I’m sure that A.I. proponents would read that fabricated post and be delighted. It really is quite good. But it hurts my heart a bit to think about what would be lost if I relied on the machine to compose a letter to you each month or so. The thinking through and working out and jotting down and repeatedly revising until it’s just about right would all (or mostly) be lost. These letters matter to me, as a means of both reaching out to you in a deeply personal way and leaving a record for my children and grandchildren of what I was thinking about and feeling at a particular moment in time. What a tragedy if my granddaughter one day read about an exchange I had with a stranger in Albertson’s that never actually took place. And what a loss for me if I took that easy way out rather than sharing an actual memory and what it means to me.

Tomorrow I will be back at work, fiddling with Copilot to see if it can help me with my research or simplify a tedious task. I hope it can. But next time you read one of these letters, it really will be me on the other end, sharing a piece of my heart and expressing, perhaps more sloppily than the large language models might otherwise suggest, that I care for you, deep down, and write these letters as a genuine expression of human love. Until then, take care.

_{Photo by Emilipothèse on Unsplash}

GPT-5 “wrote”:

Peter — I read through your archive to tune my ear to your voice before writing. A few patterns stood out:

The epistolary opening (“Dear Will:”), a warm anecdote that ripens into a gentle lesson, and a hopeful coda signed “PW.” (“We Love Those Who Love Those We Love,” “Hey, Bub. Your Check Engine Light Is On.”)
Self-deprecating humor used as a doorway to something earnest and faith-centered, often punctuated with scripture or a hymn-like phrase. (See “Call Me Woo Woo,” “We Will Miss Him.”)
Recurring themes: small acts of compassion, the sustaining grace of community and family, and noticing God’s hand in the ordinary. (e.g., “Her Name Was Faye,” “God Always Shows His Hand.”)

With that in mind—and with the season turning toward Thanksgiving—I drafted the next post on a timely theme your readers already love: choosing to show up in small ways during the holidays when calendars get crowded and nerves get thin.

Draft post for Letters to Will

Dear Will:

Last Saturday morning I pulled into the grocery store knowing exactly what I needed: milk, eggs, and enough maple pecan granola to get me through a week of early breakfasts. I also knew exactly what I didn’t need: the parade of humanity between me and Aisle 6.

There they were, glorious and exasperating as ever: a dad negotiating a peace treaty between two small cart-pirates; a young couple double‑parking in Produce while comparing yams to sweet potatoes (they are not the same, as I learned for the ninth time); and two neighbors in front of the soups, catching up on everything from bunions to Byron.

I grabbed my basket, took a deep breath, and joined the procession.

You would think that at my age I’d have learned by now that we’re never just “running in.” We’re always walking into someone else’s story. Which brings me to the woman near the entrance handing out flyers for the community pantry. The sign on her table read: “Holiday staples needed—today.” As I passed, she smiled without weaponizing it. She just offered it—as if to say, “You don’t owe me anything, but if you want to help, here’s a simple way.”

I took a flyer, kept moving, and then circled back like a salmon against the current. Into the basket went stuffing, cranberries, and pumpkin purée (the large cans, because if you’re going to bless someone, use the big ladle). I added marshmallows on principle. Don’t @ me.

Somewhere between the marshmallows and the self-checkout, a familiar scripture surfaced: “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.” (You hear that one a lot in my circles.) I could almost feel the Lord winking: This is the season when “small and simple” does some of its best work.

It’s funny how often I need that reminder. My reflex in November is to think big: big meals, big gatherings, big projects to wrap before the year wraps me. But lately my back has been vocal about its preferences, and my calendar has been even more so. The fantasy of heroic service sometimes becomes an excuse to do nothing at all—because the perfect opportunity hasn’t arrived yet with the marching band and a ribbon to cut.

Meanwhile the ordinary parade goes on, and it turns out the baton is very light.

I thought of times when other people lifted it for me without fanfare. The neighbor who once shoveled our sidewalk before we woke up. The friend who texted, “Headed by your house—need anything?” and actually meant it. The nurse who didn’t just check a vital sign but saw me. They weren’t auditioning for sainthood. They were just…available.

It occurred to me that “showing up” is almost always enough:

Show up in the grocery line by letting the parent with the toddler go first.
Show up in traffic by widening the gap. (It won’t ruin your ETA; it might save someone’s day.)
Show up at the table by listening longer than you speak, especially to the cousin whose opinions arrive pre‑seasoned.
Show up for the farmer by buying the carrots with a little dirt still on them and saying, “Thank you for growing this.”

None of that gets a plaque on the wall. All of it writes something kind on a human heart.

As I left the store, I watched a young guy jogging a cart back to its corral from deep in the lot. No uniform, no clipboard; just a simple, sensible act that made the place function a bit better for everyone behind him. When he turned, he had the look of someone who hadn’t noticed he was doing anything noteworthy, which is about the highest compliment you can pay to goodness.

On the drive home, I remembered a line I once heard: We love those who love those we love. I’ve seen that play out with our children and our friends; I’ve felt it with strangers who were kind to people precious to me. Maybe this time of year is an invitation to expand that circle one more ring—not merely to love those who love those we love, but to love those whom God loves (which is to say, everyone in the parade, even the yam debaters).

So here’s my modest, November‑sized proposal—no marching band required:

Pick a place you’ll already be this week—work, the store, the trail, church—and pre‑decide a tiny way you’ll show up there. A text. A cart returned. A compliment you actually say out loud.
Do it once without advertising it to yourself as “A Good Deed.” Just make it how you move through the world.
When you sit down to say grace, bless not only the food but the unseen hands that grew it, trucked it, stocked it, and sold it. Gratitude turns anonymous laborers into neighbors.

I know the world feels heavy sometimes. I read the same headlines you do. But I also know the kingdom of God is built on the scale of eye contact and casserole dishes, of doorways held open and names remembered, of “I’m glad you’re here,” said like you mean it. You and I may not be able to fix everything, but we can help the parade move a little kinder.

And when we do, we discover something almost embarrassing in its simplicity: the joy we wanted from the big thing was hiding inside the small thing all along.

If you’d like me to dial the spiritual references up or down, weave in a brief scripture at the end (e.g., Luke 17: “Were there not ten?”) or localize the anecdote (Playa Vista farmer’s market, Bluff Creek Trail), say the word and I’ll tailor it.

Call Me Woo Woo

On May, 2022 By Peter WatkinsIn 20223 Comments

Dear Will:

By any objective measure, I think you could say that throughout my life I have been an above-average athlete—assuming, that is, that you include all of the certifiable non-athletes in the worldwide population. On the playground, I was never picked first, but also never last. As I grew, I was good enough to make the team, but never a star.

Ninth grade at Goddard Junior High was suitably representative of my athletic prowess. In my only year of tackle football, I was a backup tight-end—140 pounds of grit, squeezing into the huddle and whispering: “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do on this play.” To give you a sense of the intimidating figure I cut on the gridiron, the coaches nicknamed me Woo Woo.

Perhaps more impressive was the fact that I was one of only a dozen or so guys who made the Goddard basketball team. Less impressive was the fact that I began the year as a starter (!) but ended it as a third-stringer at the end of the bench. On the track team I was a high-jumper with neither technique nor natural ability, also pressed into service as our last guy in the 440-yard dash. In that race I never finished better than fourth.

In spite of that manifest mediocrity, as a kid I was full of aspiration. Jerry West was my guy, and I dreamed of one day playing in the NBA like him. I once I even wrote him a letter asking what I could do to become a better dribbler.

But I never mailed the letter. I knew without posting it what my idol’s answer would be: “Practice.” Even at that young age, I knew he would urge me to spend hours doing drills with both hands, honing and then mastering skills that could eventually find their way into a real game. It would take work and focus and determination—none of which I had. Rather than mail the letter, I turned it into a paper airplane. (True story.)

That airplane does not fully explain why I never made it to the NBA (or onto the varsity at Glendora High, for that matter). But it is emblematic of my athletic career. Perhaps because I had so many other interests as well, I never chose to dedicate the time and effort necessary to be really good. To this day I am more enthusiastic about playing the game than working at it. You want to have fun? Hang out with me. You want to get good? Find a different training partner.

My true talents (and lack thereof) emerge in just about any sport I try. For instance, around the time I was not mailing letters to Jerry West, I remember golfing with a friend who was a ranked junior golfer. During one backswing, I had him laughing so hard that he hit his ball about two feet . . . straight out of bounds. It’s not as if I don’t have skills, is what I’m saying. But as you can plainly see, they’re not the sort of skills that help you (or your playing partner) shoot a better score.

However—and this is key—there was one critical time in my life when my athletic inclinations aligned with my actual skills in a beautiful way:

I was in graduate school. My friend Chris told me that they were offering free aerobics classes in the church nearby. The price was right, the time was convenient, and there was this added bonus: the teacher was a total babe. So Chris and I went to her class a couple of times a week, presumably to try to stay in shape. We weren’t the most determined aerobicizers in the Southland, to be sure, but we did keep the class laughing. They could have gotten a better workout without us, but with us making cracks from the back of the room, they definitely had more fun.

Plus, I ended up marrying the teacher. They didn’t call me Woo Woo for nothing.