President Gordon B. Hinckley was born the same year Mark Twain passed away. It was as if the nation made a deal to trade in one aging American original for a new one. The national mourning for Twain was tempered in the Hinckley home with a celebration of life.

Next week, President Hinckley will turn 95. And, given his travels and all the people he's met, the personal tributes will soon be flowing in.

Today, I offer mine.

To begin with, I'm one of President Hinckley's many passing acquaintances. Over the past 40 years our paths have crossed only five or six times — twice in Bolivia, after 9/11 and at a few functions. And what I remember is I was a different person at each meeting — I was always going through some new "phase."

He, on the other hand, was always the same. He knew where he stood and why. He was as rooted as a walnut tree.

I was all over the map.

I was, I think, like "Christian," the seeker in "Pilgrim's Progress" who heads out to find the "Celestial City." Christian takes every route. He gets bogged down in the "Slough of Despond," gets sidetracked by "Vanity Fair." Yet each time when he's ready to abandon the quest, a man named "Evangelist" comes along who is the embodiment of steadiness — he is kind and encouraging. Like a living lighthouse, he offers Christian a landmark, a fixed point to plot a new course.

For me — and millions like me — President Hinckley has been that lighthouse.

Yet more than light, he bestows "lightness." With a look and a word he can convince you your burdens are bearable. He raises sights and spirits.

In Bolivia in the late 1960s, I was a homesick elder and President Hinckley was the visiting authority. He'd just learned the Spanish word "maravilloso" (marvelous), and he worked it into every conversation, always with a sly smile. He made me feel at peace.

Thirty years later, in Bolivia, he surprised me at a meeting by asking me to "Come up and show these people how much Spanish you can remember." His cheerfulness made the task easier.

At his touch, the heaviest cross grows buoyant.

In one interview, I remember, gloom filled the hall. He began by reaching for his hearing aid. "Just a minute," he told us, "I need to get my tin horn." The clouds departed.

And once, as I slogged along on deadline, I heard a voice from behind me. "Look," the voice said, "There's that bald man who writes for the paper." It was President Hinckley, lifting the mood.

Is it possible not to love such a man?

When he puts his hand to his mouth to mute his emotions, when he gestures like a carpenter pounding nails, when he hangs on the word "great" in his talks and speaks in crisp, clean phrases like the Gospel of Mark, who wouldn't follow him? Millions do. And we follow because we know such a man will follow The Master.

While returning from Bolivia five years ago — where President Hinckley had asked me to speak — I went into cardiac arrest in Dallas. After my surgery, a call came in. It was President Hinckley. His voice was like sunshine.

"Jerry?" he said. "Did I give you that heart attack?"

I could almost feel my heart begin to heal as he spoke. I laughed and said, "No," that careless living was to blame.

What I should have said — and say now — is that without his lighthouse life and gift for giving wing to troubles — I might not have a heart at all.

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E-mail: jerjohn@desnews.com