Winter in Europe and the Americas is a season of holidays. Halloween passes, and is followed by Thanksgiving. The season of Advent heralds Christmas. There are the twelve days of Christmas, and somewhere in between are New Year’s Eve and, of course, the first day in the New Year.

Somewhere between Christmas and the New Year, Grandmamma and I settle down for a cozy little chat. Grandmamma insists that life is ever-changing and there is undoubtedly something different and something special in each year; something that sets each year apart from all the other years. I don’t always agree with her. I don’t see something special in every year. There are times when I am only aware of the fact that I am still alive and kicking. True, she agrees, but that was the same last year.

"What we’re looking for is something special!"
The Christmas gathering of my little flock was cancelled because of the weather. True, she agrees, but that didn’t keep them from coming on the Friday before the party. On the day of the party, grandkids and great grandkids showed up in spite of the weather. I was caught, so to speak, unaware in my underwear; nothing new and different there.

There were new friends, compliments of ICON. Bill and Faye invited me for lunch at the John Kidd Senior Center. Faye picked me up at the house. After lunch, we were going to visit Clarence. When we arrived at the Senior Center, Bill was waiting for us. We were joined by a student from Bill’s computer class. Bill introduced the gentleman. His name, Bill told me, was Jim Willhite. During the course of the conversation, Jim and I became aware of the fact that we shared the same birthday. Jim thought it was an excellent idea to celebrate that day by going out for lunch.

I rarely accept a luncheon invitation, but when Jim called the following week, I accepted. He was a bright and cheerful person. Bright and cheerful, positive-oriented people are hard to come by these days. I accepted Jim’s offer.

We met at the Golden Corral. We arrived before the Sunday after-church-lunch-bunch did, and were quickly seated. Jim turned out to be the perfect lunch companion. He was charming and intelligent. We talked about those common experiences way back when, when we were young and eager for life. We both experienced the same war, but on opposite sides. We did not talk about battles, but how our wartime experiences had affected us. And we both agreed that they had made us more compassionate. They had also taught us survival skills.

Jim returned home after the war. He was quick to exchange the sword for the plowshare. He said with a smile that he was equally quick to lay down the plowshare and exchange it for a traveling case. Farming, he said, was hard. He excelled in business. Fate and fortune rewarded him with an unusual experience. On one of his trips as District Manager for a tool company, he found himself on a plane, seated next to the retired President Harry S. Truman.

I told Jim that I, too, saw the former President on one of his travels, but I wasn’t seated next to him. I took the kids to see the President and his motorcade. Jim and I both made the same statement. When we saw Harry S. Truman, he was such a little man with a big smile. But he was history, and his decisions affected the lives of the common man. Jim recalled a joke the President enjoyed. That joke may have been more than four decades old, but it still made me laugh. Jim and the retired President exchanged thoughts about war and peace. Peace, the retired President said, would come when we all shared one language. Jim understood what was implied. The language that is common to all mankind is not spoken with the tongue; it is felt with the heart.

Jim spent two decades of his life developing a failing crossroads country store into a million dollar enterprise. There were still horse and buggies at that time. There were sickles and scythes. I certainly could recall my uncle cutting the grain in the field with a scythe. They don’t do that anymore. There are tractors and total grain factories that harvest the land and ready the grain for storage. Farmers exchanged the horse for the tractor. We learned to drive cars, changed from iceboxes to refrigerators, and from the woodstove to the microwave. When something new came along, we learned and adapted and put our learning to good use. In our own small way, we earned fortunes and built empires. We experienced hunger, fear, and pain, and used each experience to forge one step forward. Hunger taught us to appreciate what was provided. Fear made us cautious ’til we learned to be fearless. Pain taught us endurance.

And now we are at another crossroad. Now computers are the challenge. Now the aging body makes us grateful that we can accept pain. The aging mind still needs to accept learning as a daily fare.

That little luncheon engagement turned out to be a three-hour, thoroughly enjoyable adventure leading from the past directly to the present. Grandmamma agreed that it was good and worthwhile. Apparently, it wasn’t yet what she was looking for.
“Did you meet Jim again?”

Yes, I did, and once again by coincidence. Faye had picked me up again for a visit with Clarence. And Bill was waiting again at the John Kidd Senior Center. Bill had ordered, and Faye and I were seated when Jim entered and passed our table. Again, Bill invited him to join us and Jim accepted the invitation. No introductions were necessary. We were friends. This time we were discussing history. It was the ring on Jim’s finger that caught my attention. Bill recognized it right away as a Shriner’s ring. Well, we were off and running again. Somewhere in my past, I could recall discussions about the mysterious Freemasons. Of course, these things could not be mentioned openly during the Third Reich. And there were the Knights Templar. That took us back to the Crusades. Isn’t life marvelous when you can set your mind on time travel? Of course, that was exactly the moment when Bill told me that he belonged to the Knights Templar.

And that was also the moment in time that Grandmamma had been waiting for to make her point:
“Wasn’t that what you wanted when you were a child? One of those knights in shining armor?”

I had forgotten about the picture on my bedroom wall—the knight with the white robe and the red cross and the beautiful horse. That story had a sad ending. The Knights Templar had been persecuted out of existence for political reasons. It certainly was reassuring to me that they still were around.
“Imagine,” said Grandmamma, “You had to wait seven decades for that special moment.”

Imagine what I would do without Grandmamma looking over my shoulder, teaching me to love what I learn and to hand on what I know for others to enjoy; how to left-click and to right-click and to Google for more information for more joy and laughter for the enrichment of daily existence. That’s why my name is on that ICON list—to help others to rise to the challenge. And what moment in time makes this year that is slowly drawing to an end more special? Knowing that a Knight Templar still does exist and does what Knights Templar have always done: HELP OTHERS IN DISTRESS.