Re: What Made My Day Today :-)

Egypt has decided to close the oldest monastery in the world (in Sinai area) and turn it into a museum and add it to attraction places for tourists to make money with. Monks and priests are being evicted and taken to other places.
I had forgotten the name of it (Saint Catherine) but remembered it as the focus of the interest of a boss I had in I believe 1991 whose father had described it for him, and now he was so eager to know more about it (his father had passed away) and had tried and found nothing.
The boss had seen me reading a xerox copy of a paper about some archeological finding in Iran while devouring my lunch, and had begun asking me if I could help him find some authentic and serious stuff about that old monastery, in par with the stuff I was reading at lunch time. He said just about all he remembered was that the thing was in the middle of nowhere in Sinai and very ancient, and he didn't even remember its name anymore.
So I began searching for stuff about such monastery in UTD's library and and didn't succeed. Although the library was a research library, the material where still heavily on the side of scientific papers and not humanities stuff. But soon enough I found a paper about it in SMU's library. Copied it and took it to work and gave it to him. It was a detailed paper, with black and white pictures as well as drawings to discuss various features and design of the place and history of it. Just what the boss yearned for :) He loved it and devoured it and began discussing it as if I knew anything about it or was even interested. It meant a lot to him cause he had childhood exposure to it as well as the memory of his father was tied in.
A couple of months later I quit that job (found a better paying one) and on my last day of the two-week's notice, in return, he gave me a gift that belonged to his father; some souvenir from Saudi Arabia! He didn't know what it was. It was a little device to find the direction of Mecca with it :-) He said the souvenir was dear to his father.
I had no use for it but he didn't know that, and I pretended to be very grateful for getting that gift. He was one of those Americans (i.e. a typical American) for whom all Arabs and Iranians were the same people living the same lives.
Anyway, this Monastery that Egypt closed today is that same one! If my boss is still around (he was 10 or 12 years older than me) I'm sure the news of it today (fat chance such news make it to Americans anymore!) will affect him. He may've visited it since though, collecting much more information and taking personal pictures and videos of it.
He was a Vietnam vet and had scars on his neck. Rather horrible looking scars, but they were more toward the back of his neck, so one could not casually discover their existence. He said he almost died of it and didn't know how he stayed alive.
He also, I noticed one day, had a head and face that almost exactly looked like someone that anyone in the world knows about. So one day I asked him whether he'd been multiple times told who he looked like. Turned out it was news to him; nobody had ever told him who he looked like (i.e. I was the only one who had noticed it!). I said, "Then forget it." But it was too late, and he asked me to tell him who he looked like. I told him he might not like my answer so again offered to forget the whole thing. And of course it made it worse and he now insisted to know who I thought he looked like. I made him promise that he would not get upset if I say it. Nothing was easier for him than making that promise of course, not knowing what was coming :-) So he confidently promised, and became all ears and eyes, looking at me.
I said, "Hitler."
More exactly, he looked very much like Hitler but without the mustache.
He went, "Ohhh no!.. How can you say a thing like that??.." and got quite red in the face. I then mentioned that he only lacked the mustache, everything else was there especially that nose. He said, "But he was a little short man, how could someone liken that creep to me!.." I said only the head, nothing else.
The boss was a very tall man. I myself am not short at all, and yet as I was telling to his face, "Hitler" I remember I was looking up at a 45 degree angle, so.. he was tall.
And strange as it was, nobody had noticed that his entire head, only minus a mustache, was almost identical to that of Hitler's.
Hehe :)
I told him to go look in the mirror and piece by piece compare his features and those of Hitler, and he'd see what I mean.
He never brought that matter up again :) He must've noticed the similarity himself!
I think I had mentioned this story one more time before, here in the usenet. But I'm not sure it was in the Iranian forum or this one. At least 20 years back.
But the fact that this fully private memory and matter about that monastery in my head, today, all by itself popped out in the news and among the public, is what made my day today :)