In memorium for Odetta, who left this world last night, Dec. 2, at age 77. What a radiant presence, what a glorious voice! Sit here for a spell and lay your burden down in her song.

Glory Hallelujah,

Mary

About two weeks before Valentine's day in 1990, I met Kirk, the man who was to become my husband. We were both washing clothes in our Friendly Neighborhood Laundromat.

I had maybe five loads of laundry to do, and the machines in my apartment complex weren't working. I also had a bunch of freshman English papers to grade, so had taken my five loads and pile of papers down the street, and settled in for an evening of work at the Fluff and Fold.

I ended up using a dryer next to a guy who seemed homeless to me - he was unshaven and wearing a jacket that looked like the remnants of a dog attack, funky brown polyester pants with the hem coming out of them ... (I wasn't looking so hot myself, adorned in shapeless dark pink sweatpants and faded alma mater T-shirt), and when he walked by me, trying to catch my eye to say hello, I was sure he was going to ask me for some change. I did have a dollar bill to spare and thought I would give that to him if he asked, as he had a woebegone and sweet vibe about him.

He asked me if I was in Amnesty International (which I was, and I still have no idea how he might have known) and we ended up talking about that for a bit. He turned out to be the local AI group's anti-death penalty coordinator. As we talked I noticed at one point that he was spending quarters to finish drying just one pair of socks. Man drying laundry, I laughed to myself.

He eventually finished with his socks and left.

Perhaps 15 minutes later, I had also finished and was hauling my clean laundry back to my car. Kirk had returned to the laundromat - I figured he had forgotten something - and he walked up to me with something in his hand. They were a pair of newly clean panties that had fallen out of my laundry basket onto the asphalt. "I think you dropped these," he said, holding them out to me. I was embarrassed because they were raggedy and skanky - so I shook my head, "No, those aren't mine," while wondering what kind of weird guy was this, picking up strange women's panties off the ground...

He asked me if we could meet again to talk. (I found out later that this was the reason he had returned to the laundromat). I was about to say no, because the panty thing was kind of freaking me out. So I looked into his eyes - and totally changed my mind. They radiated warmth and kindness.

So I agreed to meet him at a nearby restaurant the following week. We had a great time but I still wanted to meet him maybe once or twice more before I gave him my phone number. (And FYI: this was also before the time of widely-used internet and e-mail, etc.). A single girl's gotta protect that phone number, ya know ...

Valentine's Day, which was about a week after our restaurant date, was a busy day for me. I rushed out that morning, late to class, and found a dozen yellow roses propped up next to my car - the tire on the driver's side.

Kirk didn't have my phone number or address but he knew what my car looked like and that I lived a few blocks from the Fluff and Fold. So he had walked around the neighborhood with these roses until he found my car, and laid them there.

He was walking back to his place and was maybe a half block away when he turned around to see me picking up the roses. So he jogged back to my car, startling me as I stood there trying to figure out what to do with the roses. A part of me thought: you mean he put the roses there and waited for me to show up? I don't know about this guy.

Stalker? Or romantic warm-hearted dude?

I decided to give him my phone number.

                                               


(Originally posted in the Integral Pod)