Years ago, as I was leaving a hospital after visiting a patient, an attendant said, “The way you greet people, I bet you’ve never met a stranger.” I accepted that as a compliment and continue to address people I have never met.

Sunday morning, as I was going into a Shell station, a man was coming out of his car. I held the door open for him and said, “How are you doing?”

“Okay,” he answered and proceeded to ask me how I was doing.

“Almost as good as you,” I answered.

He was a pleasant, middle-aged man with a sweatshirt that read WISCONSIN in big bold letters.

When he said he was from Wisconsin, I asked if he ever heard of Elkhorn, Wisconsin.

“Sure did,” he answered, “but it’s not a very big town.”

I told him I had a good friend from there when I was in the Navy and I always enjoyed aggravating him by telling him that my hometown of Reserve was bigger that Elkhorn.

We talked for not more than 10 minutes. I learned that his name was Ed, he went to the University of Wisconsin, was a football player for one year and then decided to come to Lafayette and attend ULL.

The reason he left was because many universities in the north had daily demonstrations led by hippies protesting the Vietnam War. He said he got tired of that and decided to move to Louisiana.

In one short conversation he told me he had a business and lived in LaPlace for over 20 years.

He was in his late 60s and didn’t tell me, but you can believe it when I say that he enjoys life. He had as pleasant a spirit as anyone I’ve ever met.

Was he a stranger? No.

I had never met him before, but with the spirit he had, I could identify and discern that he was a Christian.

If you have any questions or comments, please write Harold Keller at Get High on Life, P.O. Drawer U, Reserve, LA 70084, call 985-542-8477 or email hkeller@comcast.net.