A few years ago I had a job as an office assistant for a major international men's fraternity. One of my duties, in fact my very first task every morning, was to go through the Obituaries in the newspaper and cross reference any newly listed dead men with the membership data base. I did this in order to determine if any members of this particular chapter had recently died.
If a member of the highest rank died it was my duty to telephone all the others of that rank and inform them of this sad news complete with any details I had gathered. I would personally invite them to the funeral and make sure they knew the funeral arrangements if they wanted to attend.
Since it took many years to achieve this high rank, and many of these men were from older to elderly in age, the need to for me to perform this service occurred on a regular basis. Over the year I had this job, I spoke with many of these members several times. After the first couple times, they knew why I was calling as soon as I introduced myself.
Often some of the men I was calling had had a past personal relationship with the recently deceased. I considered it part of my job to listen to any stories, within reason, they wanted to relate. Between this task and my other duties, I spoke with many of the active members at least once, usually over the phone.
Many of them were frankly lonely and pleased to have a friendly voice on the other end of the phone not trying to sell them anything and willing to listen. Sometimes the adventures they told me about were like the plot to a movie or best seller. They had been places, done things, and were intelligent enough to have paid attention and learned from the experiences of life. I laughed, I cried, and often came away enriched with some bit of wisdom.
Occasionally I couldn't contain myself and would say, "That is such an incredible story! Have you thought about writing this down for your kids and grandkids?" Many of them were modest and surprised anyone would find their stories worthy of the printed page. There were however, others who expressed a desire to do exactly that but lacked the time, knowledge, or clerical skills to acomplish the task.
The more I thought about this, the clearer it came to me that here was a need I could fill. |
