I’ve met and chatted with two Nobel Prize winners over the years, and during two summers, drank a lot of coffee with a member of the Nobel Committee. I also had the luck to get to know a holder of the Medal of Honor. None of those people manifested the depth and strength of personality that my old director had shown me.

*****

So I located the man, and we communicated occasionally through the years. We still do, but I respect him too much to force myself on him as much as I’d like.

About five years ago, he and his wife visited Helmville for a few days. As they were leaving, he took me aside, saying that he had something to tell me. He was crying a little, and I expected to hear that he had a serious illness.

Instead, he told me that, in his years as Peace Corps director, and of the hundreds of volunteers he handled, I was the best volunteer he had known. It’s still hard for me to accept, but the man is physically incapable of either falsehoods or empty compliments.

If the statement had come from any other person, I would have considered it to be sentimental, vacuous tripe, but, coming from a man with his moral fiber, I cherish what he told me. In my bad times, it’s what keeps me afloat.