Greta

Today, after viewing the Dale Chihuly Exhibit at the art museum, which is another story to be told later of what was probably the greatest display of fanaticism I have yet to witness, Gina and I made our way over to the museum restaurant for lunch. They were serving a large brunch but we decided we weren’t that hungry. We had them make us iced cappuccino with cocoa. It was delicious and hit the spot. While we were sitting there, enjoying the view of the open garden with its fountain, a waitress looked strikingly familiar to me but I couldn’t place where I knew her from. While leaving the museum, we ran into each other again and we both stopped. We each had that feeling we knew each other.


Sure, now I know, and a smile came over my face. It's Gretta! She had been attending college a couple of years ago and worked at a restaurant where I had lunch almost daily. She was preparing a thesis for school and was having computer problems at the time. She asked for assistance from the Data Processing Department where I worked, but they said they couldn't help her. She was a friend of the CEO, so -- one of the other employees in the firm asked me if I would look at the P.C. and see if I could help her. I agreed to give it a shot and went on my lunch hour to the restaurant to begin the process of extracting any information I could off of the old computer. Lunch was soon over, but I still had more work to do, so I suggested that Greta leave the computer on until I returned after work.


That evening I went back and proceeded once more, little by little, to save the work onto other discs. I would have to reconstruct them later in order to print out her thesis. I was there for quite a while and the p.c. kept “crapping out.” Fred and Greta fed me dinner while I kept working diligently. I continued until I had extracted the last of the work. My persistence had paid off. After I used primitive methods for converting the piece from Apple to IBM (the technique had not been perfected yet), whereby I saved it from one software package to another, finding the compatibility’s of each while making the transfer from Apple to IBM complete. We gave all the information to another friend, and she began formatting the thesis into a finished product. Where others saw no possibility, of it, I was able to transform a flat out “no” into a maybe. God has given me the gift of persevering in times when all seems hopeless, and He allows me from time to time, to be a contributing factor in other peoples lives as well. That experience reconfirmed the realization that there is nothing I accomplish in this material life without His help. I would be a fool to think I did it all alone. It was nice, visiting with Greta again and it gave me that good feeling that comes with contributing to others, even if it was a small one. Thank you God.