Greece

            Senator Robert Byrd, the King of Pork, died this year. While in office, he spent something like $5 billion in taxpayer money on projects for his home state. Just so the citizens of West Virginia wouldn't forget his generosity, he lent his name to dozens of courthouses, libraries, schools, clinics and government buildings, not to mention streets and highways and even locks on the Ohio River.

            I can imagine Senator Byrd's greeting at the Pearly Gates. "Senator, if you're here for your heavenly reward, you'll have to get to the end of the line. You've already gotten yours."

            The extraordinarily generous people of Perquimans County who donate money, goods, and services to charity every year don't need to get their names on buildings and such. For them, charity is its own reward. But sometimes it helps to attach a face, a name, or a place to a good cause.

            Moved to tears by photographs of refugees in Europe during World War II, my grandmother, who was crippled by arthritis in her final years, collected old and discarded coats. With her painful and gnarled fingers she mended the garments, added buttons, and replaced linings. She then sent them off to a refugee relief organization. She didn't ask for a reward, but she pinned a note inside a sleeve of every coat, giving her name and address along with the simple words, "I hope this coat gets to someone who needs it."

            Shortly after she died in 1947, we received a letter from Greece addressed to her. My father, who had studied classical Greek but could only make out a few words of the modern version, took the letter to a Greek Orthodox priest for translation. The priest didn't speak English, so he read the letter to his daughter who couldn't read Greek, but understood it well enough. She told my father that the letter was from a Greek woman who wanted to thank my grandmother for the coat that had kept her warm through the harsh winter of 1945.

            I have a feeling my grandmother didn't have to stand in line very long at the Pearly Gates. She never knew it, but her pass was written in Greek.