The measure of good, the full extent of compassion, the amazing dimensions of love in its finest expression in any community is difficult to the threshold of the impossible in many communities and most especially in the neighborhood that embraces Carthage and surrounding area. Only when with shocking suddenness you find yourself unbelievably the recipient of its generosity, what a wonderful shock, does the magnitude of the action get your attention. Since it happened, a few weeks ago, to me and mine I have struggled through the haze of pain to find a way to express my gratitude and that of my family with great intensity to every generous person in the literal army of compassion that arose in my defense to help me and mins cope with a serious challenge. Let this column also serve to report to those who ask that I am doing well, advancing vigorously toward recovery and now at least able to strike a few keys and relay a message from near bedside. Stay tuned. By the grace of God and wonderful friends there will be more to come.
 

If you wanted to know, here, capsulized, is what happened. I was safely (?) at home, walking across the living room, when without warning my world turned upside down and reversed course. A knee joint that had faithfully supported me nearly 82 years faced a challenge from arthritis and, deciding it had enough, abruptly bowed out,concluding to reject its responsibility. I wound  up in a twisted hurting heap on my living room floor. Caring personnel and volunteers responded promptly and hoisted me onto a gurney to begin the most recent of my several periods of temporary residency at McCune-Brooks Regional Hospital. There began a most amazing period of treatment that ultimately placed me upright on my own feet and at least sitting upright in an auto seat for transport home and, after more gracious attention, back into my place at the computer keyboard. Perhaps you also may need to know that what at first was thought to be a near fatal hip fracture was revealed blessedy as only a painful assault upon the muscles of one (only one)side of the body. Although not as rapidly as would have been possble in previous decades, in tedious steps, healing is proceeding with potent therapuetic aid. All this and more is possible only via the compassionate care of what must be the most skillful and efficient health care personnel on the planet in certainly the most inspiring and smoothly managed hospial in the new and better McCune-Brooks. We never will forget the quality and sensitivity of their work; equally memorable was the attention in personal visits and powerful prayers of staff and personnel of countless churches and clergy friends and logntime co-horts and the even more numerous Christian believers from every system of worship practice in the region, bolstered especially by a superb hoepital chaplain and the complete staffs of many Carthage churches. Such spiritual strength and its effects are beyond human capacity of measurement.
 

But this is only the beginning. When I was dismissed and went home, sitting upright like everyone else, I discovered that, mostly without my knowledge, a huge army of volunteers had labored repeatedly around the clock in cooperation with my unbelievably strong spouse and our unswerving five offspring to convert our home of 50-plus years into a far more appropriate environment for a person with seriously increased physical limitation. It doesn t get any better than this.
 

I can only say that, for myself and my family, to every wonderful volunteer, Thanks from every fiber of my being for giving me a chance at more years of service. I promise to invest every ounce of every added bit of strength in ways intended to extend the further touch of the love conveyed and all such amazing volunteer workers. Even distant grandchildren and great-grandchildren eagerly join in the chorus of       
 

THANK  YOU!
 

Listen. Can you hear that? We mean it.
 

The remainder of our gratitude comprises book-length, even encyclopedic, length, breadth and depth. If you were among our special helpers, God alone can and certainly will see that the ultimate reward will be yours in good time.