2005: Nostalgia: " X-19"

As an Evansville regular of the library, you may notice the silver Honda with the license plate, X19, each morning and you may notice an older gentleman in a burgundy french beret cap. Like clockwork, he enters the library and approaches the circulation department each morn----- "Good morning ladies." " How is everyone this fine morning." "We're just fine, Don How are you this morning? You are a little late."..........

Evansville's X19 has a long history as a WWII veteran and a car dealer in Evansville. .....

During WWII, on the island of Okinawa, X19 served first as a PX manager, and later when the military learned about his ability to take and develop film, as a forward observer. Located very close to the Japanese lines, his job was to telephone, and quickly, the adjustments for Allied artillery. Avoiding detection was survival. This was the third of his landings. First there was Kiska, then Saipai.. The next one, the one he already had his number for, was the landing on Japan. " We were all dead, and we knew it, he said. " We knew the reputation of the resistance in Japan, that all those on the Japan landings would be history."

After the A-bomb, and the end of the war, X19 returned home to Evansville. There was a long tradition in the automobile business in the family. His step- grandfather had been the first Ford dealer in the State of Wisconsin. His father was the sales manager of the Ford dealership in Evansville, located where the roller rink is now today. X19 began to work in the Evansville dealership. After X19's son returned from the Vietnam war, they got to chatting one afternoon about the car business. The son said he really didn't like the business. X19 said, " Well, that make's two of us. I have been frustrated with it for years and only kept it for you. In fact, Ford had a v8 in 1937 with 60 and 85 HP that got 35mpg, but preferred the big, gas guzzlers that were unreliable. I have never forgiven them for that. It was a big mistake. Let's sell the business." And he did. He is now on his 5th Honda.

When he sold the dealership number 19, he changed his license to X19. He got the idea from the governor of Wisconsin, who had number 1 on his license plate, and then when he left office, took the number X1.

In the years since, X19 has served 30 years on the library board, as well as 30 years on the Board of Review.

I have mentioned in an earlier post on "How to sculpt a David," that the key to creating things is knowing what one does NOT want to become. Carving out the unwanted really defines a person. What caused the gift of length of years Don has been given?--87 1/2. It is all right there on the license plate...... X19.

As you enter the library this halloween, you might sense the spirit of X19, the spirit of Don Thompson. His spirit of service lives.