Calling Henry over to the corner table, Bill explained the concept of "A Philosophical Society, a forum to exchange ideas." Bill spoke distinctly and deliberately, always as a command to be obeyed without question, not because it was an order, but because you wanted to.

Yet the first clue of the extra special purpose came with the arrival of the letter carrier. Bill's eyes light up in delight when the postal person plopped a package neatly wrapped in a brown paper bag.

Watching Bill pick cautiously with his finger nails at the edge of the package, I chided Bill as I poured him more coffee, "Santa Claus come early, Bill ?" I bit my lip. Had I invited yet another Greek History lesson ?

"You might say, Jane." Bill replied as he pried loose a corner of the carefully wrapped package. Bill tore open an edge to reveal a blue and white stripe and nodded in satisfaction. Bill said to me, "We Greeks neither much adore national symbols nor worship war,. Yet..." Bill carefully refolded the package and handed it gently to me for safekeeping.

While I was aware of Bill's mesmerizing powers from the very first day he had challenged the Yankees in dickering with Jimmy Blade's relatives over the purchase of the restaurant, it was on that misty Monday that I began to understand more clearly that capability. Yet as I returned to watch for the swish of tires against the gentle bend of the two laned road heading into town., Bill resumed reading the scribble marks in his foreign paper without hinting of a greater purpose at hand.

Holding his coffee cup out to signal me to bring the pot for a refill for him and Jimmy Blades, the former manager, Bill did not speak further to me, although Bill did peer at the romance novel Blades read with a sign of disgust. " When," Bill demanded to know, "will you put away such childish drivel, and read men's literature ?".

Over at the counter, perched on a stool, Henry Miller thumbed through the list of his customers he kept in a black notebook. Looking up with a twinkle in his eyes, Miller tapped the little notebook against the counter and commented, "In search of pilgrims in the promised land."

We glanced to spy on the boss, bearded Greeks Bill who had one eye fixed on the door for customers while the other eye ran with his finger across the page of the runic tabloid. Grey templed Jimmy Blades moaned that these misty mornings cut into his tips from caddying at the golf course. "All the money tied up in that estate..." Jimmy moaned wistfully.

"You should," Bill momentarily glanced up from the paper, "be in the restaurant business, as you once were. Mondays... tourists went home... local spent their money over the week-end,,, and everyone's waiting for Friday, the next paycheck." Bill paused and stared at the four cars in the empty parking lot out front glazed with the oily drizzle. "That is why my idea of a Yankee Philosophical Society will bring some life here Monday evenings."

Back at the counter, I shook my head, "A Yankee Philosophical Society ?..." I stared at Henry Miller in feigned disbelief. "The Yankee Philosophical Society ?"

I slung another cup of coffee at Henry Miller who resumed thumbing through that notebook of potential customers for newspaper ads. "And what will you find in the crags and hills of Yankee Border Country ?"

Studying the notebook and slurping coffee Miller chuckled. "Pilgrims wandering in search of a promise."

"Like Christ ordering the fisherman to follow him." I chided with a smile at Miller.

"The immediate aim," Miller whispered and drew closer, "Bill thinks the Philosophical stuff'll give Jimmy Blades," Miller glanced toward the distant table, "the backbone to claim his inheritance. Maybe if Jimmy knows he has friends he'll..."

I shot a fleeting glance at Blades idly reading a book and turned to Henry with a smile. "Be a man ? Jimmy's the 45 year old orphan in search of a family. He'll never be a man." I looked sympathetically at Miller and stroked his hand clasped rigidly to that note book.

"Gotta sell some ads..." Henry drew the notebook into his lap. "Time to put dreams of great empires away." Miller waved as he bound for the door.

I paused behind the counter so that I could approach Bill's table with that Yankee undecipherable granite face. I looked at the drizzle sparkling on the windshields of the cars outside and listened for the occasional swish as a car which passed by.

Certain that I had overcome the slight rebuff, I went to Bill's table to pour another cup of coffee.

Bearded Bill scratched the bushy stubble around his round face saying, "Efharvisto, Jane, kiplo kafe, Iakobeas ?" Bill asked Jimmy Blades, the former manager who, though cheated out of his inheritance, seemed to have been inherited by Bill with the purchase.

"Naw," said Jimmy closing a book and replacing it on the window ledge where he kept his little library of love stories for reading on rainy days. "I'm heading over to the golf course. I may pick up some foursomes, if the drizzle ends." Jimmy bounded for the door leaving the restaurant empty.

"A Yankee Philosophical Society. What do you expect, Cicero to crawl out from under the crags and mountain rills....?" I asked.

Bill stroked his bushy black beard. "Kee-ker-oh...," Bill corrected, "Kee-ker-oh. No. Mr. Miller will have to do."

As I turned to stand watch over the empty counter, Bill called after to me, "The Yankee Philosophical Society will succeeded where the Army failed."

I growled back at Bill. "Jimmy Blades' family was so rich they put Jimmy through some fancy college and bribed the draft board to overlook the "F's"!"

Bill folded his foreign newspaper and waved at me with a smile.

" I dread to wonder whether the pilgrims Henry Miller will come up with are in search of a promised land or buried by it..." I rolled my eyes with pretended disinterest. "At least I'll be off duty when your Mayflower docks."

The sun didn't give a hint of jutting through damp drizzle. I may have dozed off until close to 4 p.m., quitting time on the day shift. I stood to stretch.

"Have to wake up to go home ?" Bill asked. "No matter," Bill turned the conformed pages of his paper. "Your partner called in sick. You have the night shift tonight." Bill looked out at the brightening western horizon.

I officiously pouted. I couldn't risk showing curiosity in Henry Miller's assembling of a Philosophical Society.

Just as the sun broke the haze in time to give the western hills an orange afterglow, Miller threw open the door and announced, "Pilgrims wandering in the promised land." A motley riot of plaid and flannel trooped behind Miller toward the corner table.

"The Philosophical Society ?" I asked.

Miller drew a deep breath before he replied, "Bible says if you can't get the people you want, get the people you can get." Miller declared in justification.

Jimmy Blades, hands in his pockets, shuffled in unobtrusively as dispirited as a prisoner of war, behind Miller's philosophers. I shook my head. The grey templed teenager who wanted to play...! How would Bill give Jimmy a game to play in a philosophical society ?

The Philosophical Society settled around a circular table as Bill bounced to the back to retrieve his colors. When Bill he returned, next to the table, he planted the blue and white striped banner with a bold white crusader cross on a union of light blue. The delight in Bill's face was only matched by the consternation of his compatriots.

The rum runners broke the silence with a question in a gravely scratchy voice, "Did your colors run when you washed Old Glory ?"

"Ain't the stars 'n stripes," grumbled the retired cop, "It's that commie ecology flag the peaceniks used to carry in the anti- war parades."

As I perched on a stool to follow the discussion, Jimmy Blades snickered and looked longingly at the cheap romance novels he kept on the shelf near the window.

Had Bill gone daft when he thought of a Philosophical Society to give Jimmy a game to play ? I sighed.

Henry Miller chuckled. "It's the Greeker's flag... They copied off us when they tossed out them Turks."

"Greeker flag ?" asked the rum runner.

"Tonight lets make this the subject of discussion." Bill pointed a finger in the air, as the philosophers drew closer in attention. " What banner deserves to be the standard of the Society ?"

An embarrassed silence fell around the table. The Philosophers turned to Henry who still wore the solid green Army jacket left over from the Vietnam War. I knew what was in their hearts, if not on their lips.

As Bill stirred the milk curdling in his coffee, Jimmy Blades crept away from the round table to retrieve a book from the ledge. Just as Jimmy returned and quietly opened his book, Bill laughed. "We Greeks do not worship national symbols or the wars they represent. It is not embarrassing to your host to voice your mind."

Still a polite silence reigned.

Bill turned to Miller. "When and where were these colors first presented ?"

"The Greeks," Miller responded, "raised their banner on a mountain top to signal the beginning of the revolt against the Turks... 1820's?"

"And the Americans ?" Bill asked.

"The Americans ripped the Union Jack from the corner of the flag according to legend in August 1776."

Bill shook his head. "You confuse the father with the son. The vision of the birth of a new constellation in a ring of fire had been given to an Imperial Greek General long before the first words were ever uttered in the English language."

"Granted," Miller folded his hands in front of him, "the antiquity of the Greek civilization, but the American Revolution proceeded the Greeks by close to 50 years."

"Search your oldest cultural memories and these symbols, the unwavering stripes, the thirteen stars in a ring of fire were already old."

"But, Bill," Miller offered some debate, "your flag doesn't have stars in a circle. It's a cross, a Christian icon..."

"Or the radius of the circle. The hardy tree which has survived a bitter winter, shorn of its offshoots."

"Even so, our flag is no longer thirteen stars in a circle, but a staggered 50," Miller retorted, "Pilgrims in search of a destiny.".

"One has grown and the other..." Bill looked around the table. All were following the conversation, except for Jimmy Blades. Blades was lost in one of the books he kept on the shelf by the window.

Bill looked toward me and barked an order, "Jane, Kafe, parkalos, and bring an empty coffee can to collect a fine from Mr. Jimmy Blades." Turning to Jimmy peering sheepishly from his book, Bill mildly rebuffed Jimmy. "If you can't contribute to the conversation, you can contribute to the coffee."

Following the last of the philosophers out later that evening, Jimmy Blades tapped the coffee can to hear his change jingle, complaining that, "Tuesday on the golf course better be sunnier so I can make up all the fines I paid tonight."

Bill folded his banner carefully for storage and declared the Society's beginning as "The success of pilgrims exploring an unchartered land."