give thanks

We spent the evening at an old folks' home.

We chatted and sang old hymns and were dazzled by Lois, a former church organist who tickled the ivories for us on the keyboard. She knew every song by memory. We only had to tell her the title, and she would start playing the introduction, we soon joined with our voices. I was amazed. She smiled and blushed a little when a few of us clapped after a song. "I haven't been able to stump her yet," the attendant Kathy said.

There I met "Ted," the 84-year-old who told me he doesn't belong there, he is perfectly healthy but had a dangerous mold growing in his basement so he decided to move in across the hall from his 88-year-old brother, who broke a bone in his neck, so is forced to get nourishment from a tube. I asked Ted for the secret to staying healthy so long, he told me to stay active and not to smoke. He walks two times a day "if the weather isn't too bad," and had a hip problem but took a pill called Glucosamine for three days and was back on the prowl.

Ted was in WWII, stationed in Germany as a machine gunner. He hates boats but remembers riding on a carrier in the Atlantic when all the soldiers had to pile up on one side after the ship had been sabotaged and started to lean in one direction. They made it to Nova Scotia and stopped there to pick up a new ship and kept on going.

Ted once witnessed a fellow soldier get shot in battle, who fell into his arms, but Ted "kept him quiet" until the firestorm stopped, then hauled him to the back lines, saving his life. "I never knew who he was, but he lived," Ted said.

The woman next to us, who was recently reunited with her husband of 66 years, Jack, after his three-week hospital stay where he widdled down to 103 pounds, told us how Jack's only brother was killed on the beach, most likely on D-Day in Normandy, she couldn't recall.

Modest, Ted only brags about one thing: While in the service, the platoon leader challenged the troops that if anyone out shot him in target training, he would throw a party for all of them. Ted out shot him. And they partied, all because of Ted. He told us how he learned how to shoot by aiming at 22 shells behind the train tracks in Caledonia, where he attended high school.

He doesn't like guns anymore. "Not after that," he said, referring to the great war.

After the war, Ted worked as an auto mechanic until the owner died and his son couldn't run the business so it folded. He worked in construction with his brother-in-law for the rest of his career. His brother-in-law quit two weeks earlier than Ted, against their company's retirement recommendations. Ted still receives a paycheck today and drives an Infinity. His brother-in-law doesn't.

Ted's wife passed away in 1986 at age 59. I read her obituary, a laminated bookmark in Ted's Bible. "It's tough losing a friend like that, even today," Ted told me. "She's beautiful," I replied. A charmer, he could've easily gotten remarried, but I sensed he loved his wife too much, no one else could fill her void. Twenty years later, he still wears his wedding ring.

I scanned the pictures of his 9 grandkids, including the three triplets, two girls and a boy, all six. "The cleaning lady tells me that I have the cleanest room in the place," he said. "I believe it," I replied, glancing around the spotless room. "I told her, 'That's because you clean it!'," he quipped. You don't belong here, Ted, I thought to myself.

Ted told the story of how his pastor gave him a verse to take with him to battle before he went overseas. I asked him to bring the verse for our Christmas visit, "Do you want to know now?" he asked, so I followed him to his room so he could flip through his Bible. "This is an old Bible, I think my wife gave it to me," he said.

A few notes were written in the back, Ted's WWII verse was Psalm 91:7. "A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you." He made it out of WWII without even a scratch on him.

For our last hymn of the night, Lois led us on the keyboard as we screeched out "America the Beautiful." Tonight, there was much to remember, and many people like Ted to be thankful for.