Long before I started to write and somewhere in the middle of developing an idea, I became aware of Grandmama. She has always been the Presence in those fabled corridors of the mind. She knew that precise moment when I hatched a plan, a way, a means of achieving exactly what I wanted to achieve. Sometimes it was rather more mischief than an achieve.

“Why is that page empty?” Grandmama wanted to know. I really didn’t know why it was still empty, except that it was empty.

“I don’t know why it’s empty; It’s just empty. “

“Could it be because you have a person in mind?” responded the Presence.

Now that she was no longer a person in the flesh and simply the essence of her existence it was easy for her to get to the core of the matter.

Of course it was exactly that. For years I have been writing about situations, about all the things that consume me in my daily hum-drum existence. This time it was different. This time I had a person in mind. I’ve written about persons before. Most of the time the columns went well and the persons were pleased.

This time it could easily be different. And yet, I felt that it was something that needed to be said.

When I first became a member of Icon I received more than a membership. With that membership came friendship. Had it not been for that friendship, I could have easily trashed that first computer and returned to an old and trusted method of writing on the old Smith Corona type writer. My first attempts at conquering the computer left me totally helpless. There was no way of conquering the computer language barrier. After all, to me the term links was reserved to sausage that went with sauerkraut and memory was something I sometimes misplaced along with my scissors, my papers, my needles etcetera etcetera etcetra.

It was that one person that came to the rescue on a holiday when I did not expect to see a friendly face. My computer had the measles. Whatever it was that I clicked produced dots, dots and more dots. I was ready to hang up a quarantine sign on my office door and deny the fact that there was a room and a computer in that room.

I answered the door bell and found a person there who greeted me with a grin, saying:

“I understand you have a problem with your computer?”

To my way of thinking that was the understatement of the year. I nodded in response and led the way to my office. He followed. He never bothered to introduce himself. He took the chair in front of the computer the way an expert pilot seats himself behind the control of an airplane. It took him less than five minutes to remedy the problem.

I would have gladly paid him for the service. He said the club had a policy of giving assistance wherever and whenever assistance was needed without accepting gratuities

He proceeded to give me what I always think of as the first valid lesson. It wasn’t just a lesson. It was an entire course in terminology, things like right click and left click, dialogue boxes, icons that stood for services the computer delivered. The inside of my mind began to look a lot like my kitchen after preparing a ten course meal for unexpected company. He smiled when he left and said something like: ”Glad to be able to help you.”

It is not my nature to join organizations. I had joined Icon with a little help from a friend. An exchange of ideas and experience was the most I had anticipated. I went to sleep that night knowing that my computer had been properly put to bed and hoping that my mind would retain sufficient information to be able to awaken it on the following day.

“What’s so difficult about writing that?” the Grand Dame wanted to know. Nothing really except how do you do justice to the person you’re describing? There was more than just a grin and a sometimes gritty exterior to this person. Over the years he has been able to teach me more than I ever thought I was capable of learning. I was awed by the skill and knowledge he displayed. And I admired his sense of values, the principles of honesty and compassion as well as the helpful way he had of making me put my nose to the grindstone as Grandmama put it so aptly. I learned to appreciate his dogged pursuit of teaching me all the things he felt I needed to know. His clever ways of including laughter and wit to keep the lesson from being to cut and dried were an added bonus. He displayed an agreeable mixture of leprechaun and King Arthur’s Merlin rolled up in one. There are times when his words are the equivalent of a porcupine’s quill. But more often his words provided the needed essence to give increased strength and determination in overcoming obstacles.

He has seen the Club increase in numbers just as he witnessed computers becoming smaller in size and larger in capability. He told me of computers from the beginning when a computer took the size of half a building and performed than 1/10 of today’s personal computer. He approved and disapproved of changes and at the same time kept himself ahead of the latest development. He never ceased to impress upon my mind the simple fact, that no matter how varied and valuable the computer had become, it was and always will be a machine. Not that he found anything wrong with that but it was implicitly understood that the computer was rarely at fault; it was usually: “The nut sitting in front of it.”

I may not always agree with him, but I am grateful for all that he has taught me. In a way he represents everything that Icon as a club represents. I do believe that becoming an Icon member was one of the better moves I have made in my life. And I am proud to be a member of Icon. What I want to know is: Does that make me an Iconian?