When one of the Founding Fathers of our nation overcame adversity it usually made it in to the history books. ICON is not the USA. When it comes to size ICON is a grain of sand compared to the land that goes from –SEA TO SHINING SEA-.

Nonetheless we, the members of ICON are fond and proud of who we are, what we are and what we represent. Those founding members of ICON gave us that particular sense of belonging.

To come to the crux of the matter, one of our founding members is presently facing that thing called: OVERCOMING ADVERSITY. Clarence Gault has been a member of this group, has held office on several occasions and has devoted his time and mind to the success of the group.

Although many of us know him by name, few were aware of his presence. He was the quiet, petite, elderly gent who usually stood somewhere in the back of the room. Sometimes he offered an opinion or two. When he was convinced that he was right he kept right on offering.

Some of us have been fortunate in having him come to our assistance. I suppose I was more fortunate than others. He corrected my mistakes, he fixed what often seemed unfixable and on top of that, he delivered lectures. Each time he rescued me from my ignorance he was prepared to deliver a three-hour lecture on computer literacy.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak. A Friend, a founding member and Teacher has had a stroke. Clarence did not want to admit that. Strokes, he thought, happened to other people, not to Clarence. Those of us who know him, also knew how critical it was for Clarence to get to the hospital. Small in stature, Clarence has a certain kind of stubbornness that is difficult to overcome. By the time he agreed to be taken to the hospital, valuable time was lost and for awhile things looked rather grim. The diagnosis was STROKE. The particular part of the brain that was affected was the area of written and verbal communication. The diagnosis was Aphasia. For Clarence there were bitter days ahead. The man who prided himself of his solitary existence and of not having to depend on anyone, was now dependent on others for even the most minimal functions of daily existence. A device was attached to his body that alerted the hospital staff of every movement he made also deprived him of his basic privacy. Clarence threatened to walk out. He finally realized that walking out didn’t work when walking was not possible.

Day by day with the help of Bill and Faye, he made a slow and painful recovery.

In my discussions with him during those early days he told me that the brain, after all was just like a computer. The memory was there he said and he would just have to change it over to a part of the brain that was still working, change files and folders from one hard drive to the other, so to speak. The only part of Clarence that was still totally intact was his stubbornness. It was the moment when he came in contact with the written word and realized that if I said the word, he knew, vaguely perhaps, but he knew it. It just didn’t look like it sounded when he saw it in the book. He still toyed with the idea of shifting the stuff from one hard drive to the other in order to get it to work. I finally told him:

“Let’s face it Clarence, you fried the motherboard.”

Clarence was silent and I knew he understood. We couldn’t just shift information from one place to the other, we would have to rewire, carefully rewire.

From then on things became a little easier. After some probing, I was relieved to find out that the important information about computer functions were still there. When I told Clarence that I had encountered a problem with the printer, his face took on that sharp little appearance of a grand inquisitor. It didn’t take him long to figure out what the problem was. He had no problem with the word: calibrate. I had problems with that. If I had to learn how to calibrate something just to get the right color, I would not rise to that occasion.

As far as Clarence is concerned, by the grace of God and by that strong endowment of stubbornness he will overcome and he will make it back to where he was before that stroke laid him low.

Perhaps now is the time for the club to return the favor. Clarence can benefit immensely from the hand extended in friendship to help him to regain his capability of the written language. He understands what he has to do in order to regain the written word. He does not know that I am writing this column. If he knew he’d probably demand to have it excluded. And yet, within my own self I feel that if anything could be of assistance in the battle of regaining the language, it would be the club that he had seen into existence, the people who share his passion: COMPUTERING.

Elsa