A Dispatch from a Knight
What follows is a posting a geocacher left on March 3, 2009, when he retrieved “The Coin of Knightly Virtues” from the geocache named “Forest Thinning” in Connecticut.
The coin itself is a Templar geocoin with the following mission:
“To travel the world and encourage those who discover and help to move it to perform random acts of kindness and generosity.
You will note this coin is attached to a small logbook that travels with it.
Take the time to write down your name (and where you are from) as well as the good deed you performed that honors the mission of this coin.”
Read what follows and understand one of the joys I get by sending geocoins and traveling items out into the world.
What follows is the message left by gelfling6 :
Perhaps destiny called on this one.. At many renaissance faires, I usually appear in full chain armor which I had crafted myself from originally coat hangers, then galvanized electric fense whire, then recently (because the last Galvanized/Copper suit was killing me with the weight.) Aluminum electric fence wire.
Today, long before I even knew this coin existed, I had already performed 2 random acts.. I work at a school bus yard, and when the lunch wagon came in, I knew one of my co-workers was trying to save-up for a replacement car. (I had just recently bought a replacement for my own, so I knew well how hard it can be. ) He initially asked the lady if he could buy on credit, but I offered to pay for his whole lunch.. He offered to pay it back when he could, but I said it was my pleasure.. and giving the reasoning of knowing how hard it was saving up.. My second act, when I had brought the afternoon kindergarten class to the school, one of the children told me that there was a girl sitting in the back of the group, crying, and wanting her mother & father. The teacher hadn’t come out yet, so I secured the bus, and went back to see what the problem was.. she was sad no-one would sit with her on the way to school.. So, I asked if it was Okay for me to sit with her while we waited for the teacher. Soon, we were playing Rock-Paper-Scissors, telling eachother jokes, and very soon she had forgotten why she was sad.. When she left the bus to go into the school, she gave me a hug (I regret I couldn’t give one back, because of legal reasons.) But she left much happier.
In many ways, my ren faire persona, of Sir Stephen Greiss, mimmicks my every day life.. Doing what I can for others, and making their lives happier. I shall guard this coin with honor, and place it very soon for someone else.
Also, A close friend & their mother were recently killed by CO poisoning.. When I FTF’ed the cache the coin was placed in, I dedicated the find to their memory & friendship. In some ways, it felt like the friend had a hand in guiding to the cache which was placed on the day of his passing.
