My Choice: 1) Have you ever met any particular "character" in your life,
someone unforgettable, who was able to affect your life strongly? Tell us
your story.

     I think everyone has noticed that one ant, the one that walks in the
opposite direction from the other ants. Sometimes he carries a dead fellow
ant on his shoulders or on those little antenna things on his head.
Normally, he walks at a much faster pace than his counterparts never
stopping to great other ants. This ant effected me as young girl as I
watched him in his lonely march. I quietly encouraged him for his courage
and have never forgotten him.
     He went against the grain that one. Followed the beat of a different
drummer taking cues from a much deeper source, an inexplicable instinct so
strong that to go against it would be akin to death. Cliches most of these,
attempting to explain what I believe is simply an individual struggling to
accomplish something greater than himself.
     As a young widow I remember him, long since dead and gone his work now
finished. Some would laugh- at least guffaw- if I admitted how much I've
been moved by an ant, that ant. But I have.

Alexandra B. Reeves