When I enter Dick Duke’s name into the search function in my computer, it creates a very long list of articles and other items all of which, in different ways, indicate the debt I owe him. My first contact with him was disappointing as I had hoped that he was providing a distance education mode for his course on Simulation at Ann Arbor—but that was not to be. So I read his work and tried to apply the magic of his insights into how games and simulations are forms of communication that go beyond words into my doctoral research. By the time he was an examiner for my doctoral thesis, we had met at several ISAGA conferences, and his very positive report on that work gave me the confidence to continue my professional focus on simulation long after the doctoral work was behind me. On the other hand, I did not meet Cathy Greenblat until long after she had ceased to be an active participant in ISAGA or the domain of simulation more generally. When we did meet in Australia, she gave me a hardback copy of one of the books she and Dick had written together and along with it a new perspective on the history and uses of simulations and games as educational tools. In this chapter, I explore some of the ways in which distant shoulders—like those of Dick and Cathy—become the means by which knowledge and skills grow and spread even when those shoulders are not nearby.