If you’re really lucky, there are a few people who cross your path, and, almost without trying, shape that worthless hunk of clay that bears your name.

What they leave behind can be scary.

My three wise men were a motley crew. There was the Sun Newspapers’ Mike McNulty, my first editor in the newspaper business.

His rules were simple: The who, what, why, where and when of a story better appear in the first two paragraphs of any news story.

“Never use a big word, when a small word is sitting on the bench,” he barked.

Lastly, that pint of booze in your bottom drawer better not leak into your reporting.

Then, of course, there was Marine Staff Sgt. Tellings, my head drill instructor at Parris Island, South Carolina.

Tellings made his bones throwing Molotov cocktails at Nazi tanks in Bel

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