...the four elegant ladies.

I'm thinking of a moment in Trieste. Our last night there. We were more or less lost. Needed directions. In a piazza. And my companion spotted four ladies. Nicely dressed. Elegant ladies, really. And we asked them for help. And oh, they were so nice. My companion had been in something of a funk. Because of heat exhaustion. But for the 10 or 15 minutes we chatted, she became revived. She felt good again. She smiled. And I thought that these ladies were godsends. I would always remember this precious moment. In some ways, it was the highlight of my brief stay in Trieste. I talked to the ladies. With my companion as the Italian translator. And I knew I had been blessed. This was a moment to treasure. If I got nothing else from Trieste, this would be sufficient. I had met 4 wonderful people. Four wonderful women. Four wonderful human beings. Maybe I will never see them again. I won't even know their names. But I will always know them as the four elegant ladies. --Jim Broede