When he was in a middle school robotics competition, if someone was struggling with a challenge, they were allowed to have a teammate step in to help them. In many cases, the person called in was Alex, and when he took the controls from the rattled contestant, he would begin methodically stepping through the problem, the world around seemingly dissolving away. The fact is he looked more like someone pulling money out of an ATM than someone trying to correct a time-sensitive problem while a room of people looked on in interest.
Another example would be from his soccer days. Not many people know this, but Alex is a natural athlete—this surely comes from the Walter bloodline, as there were many accomplished athletes on that side of the family. Marty’s favorite: watching him run. Alex has such a fluid running gait he appears to be levitating, if not actually flying over the ground. My favorite: watching him react in sport. When he played soccer, he was the center defenseman. If you spied him when the ball was safely on the other side of the field, he could not have looked less interested, as if he was forced to be there. But when the ball’s direction turned, an immediate alertness set in, his body readied, motioning and directing the defenders on his wings with calm certainty. And when the time came to act, he did and he did so with an intuition and ability that wasn’t taught, that can’t be taught. It is just one of those natural skills some people have and some people don't.
So, when you look at Aleo, you may see a placid body of water. But beneath that glassy surface are moving tides that are every bit as powerful as a professional athlete with their chest puffed out and bellowing LET’S GO after a heated moment.
The video above emanated from a film project during his freshman year (this was actually the students first film production they were asked to do). The assignment was to make a music video. As freshmen, they were permitted to use a bank of stock video footage they could pull from and edit into a finished video as they hadn't yet been fully trained on all the equipment. Alex opted to shoot his own footage which was optionally allowed.
One day, he came home with several crates of camera gear that he had checked out from school. He asked if I would help with the project. I said sure, thinking I would make an excellent light holder and box unpacker. But then he told me I would be helping him by being IN the film. This gave me immense pause. I’ve never acted a day in my life. I won’t even play charades. I told Aleo he was asking me to ruin a 50-year streak of avoiding this sort of thing, and he might not want to rely on me. But he assured me everything would be ok. Honestly, in this exchange we had a bit of role reversal where I was the nervous kid and he the re-assuring parent saying he wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. Through his conviction and confidence in me, I consented. And by doing so, I might have offered the purist evidence that there is nothing I will not do for my children.
So, for two days, Alex turned our home into a film set and we methodically stepped through his shot list. As I watched it unfold, I couldn't imagine it ever coming together in any coherent way but Alex seemed confident the whole way through. In fact, here's how each shot went. Alex would spend anywhere from ten to thirty minutes setting up cameras and lighting and mics and then we'd record a seven second shot. After each recording Alex would go to the camera and play back the footage. A few times we would reshoot but there were lots of times he took the first try. After replaying one of the more difficult shots in the film, I heard him say under his breath, and fully to himself (I don't think he even knew I was there), “Man, I’m going to trounce these fools.”
That quiet declaration said entirely to himself was more intimidating than any threat or saber-rattling I’ve had thrown at me in any of my competitive endeavors.
