And I won't forget, what I did for work . . .

We've all probably done dumb things for our jobs. Driving through a snowstorm. Flying in bad weather. Traveling to a city ravaged by riots. I've done all three but the last one stands out for me. 

The 1980 Miami race riots started in earnest on Sunday, May 18, 1980, following the acquittal of four Dade County Public Safety Department officers in the death of Arthur McDuffie, a forty-something black insurance salesman and Marine.

At that time, my job was flying around the country training people how to use online systems. (Yes, the date is right. There were online systems pre-Internet.) I was due in a Miami law firm on Monday but flew to Florida on Friday to spend the weekend with a friend. As I recall we spent a few days at a theme park. Possibly Busch Gardens. We drove from her house on the beach in St. Augustine. On the drive back, I heard something about the verdict in Tampa on the car radio but didn't make the connection with my business trip to Miami.

Before cell phones, e-mails or texts, I must have given my friend's number to the airline as a contact number. Somehow I got the message to call Eastern Airlines and ended up listening to a tape that essentially said Eastern Airlines will fly you to Miami but we can't guarantee your safety once you get there. In simpler terms, it said, we'll take you if you want but don't blame us if you get killed.

Never once did it occur to me not to go. I had an appointment on Monday. Obviously, the world would end if I did not arrive on time. At least that was how I saw it.

So, I boarded the plane to Miami. I recall nothing until I reached baggage claim. The area was eerily quiet with people wandering around without the usual hubbub surrounding travelers. People frantically, yet quietly, looking for someone to take them away from the airport. Cab drivers were assembling groups of passengers. I had to ask several drivers before someone assigned me to a cab with four other passengers. All four strangers.

Outside in the passenger pickup area, it was deadly quiet. I climbed into the center of the front seat squeezed between the driver and a man returning home to his riot-torn city. None of the passengers spoke as we rode down empty streets through dark and silent neighborhoods. At some point, we drove onto an expressway and I could see lights and smoke in the distance. The troubled area seemed far away. At that point, I did not know there were two concentrations of unrest. 

One by one, the other passengers got out at their homes or hotels. At the last traveler's stop, the driver told me to come along too. He carried my bag into the hotel and spoke Spanish with the desk clerk. I couldn't help noticing my driver sounded a bit desperate. But, there was nothing he could do. The hotel was booked. 

I have to give that driver credit. He could have dumped me. He could have stuck my suitcase inside the door and run. He could have safely driven away before the desk clerk could break the bad news to me. But, he stayed and loaded me and my bag back into the cab to head through the dark, silent night for my hotel. I didn't actually know where that hotel was located, but I had figured out it was nowhere good.

He took me to my Holiday Inn, I think, in Coconut Grove. I remember very little about it except that the desk clerk assigned me a room on the ground floor with a window that opened up onto an alley. In all my years of business travel, I had never been assigned a room with dubious security. This was not the night to try one out. I tend to be an easy-going guest, but even I asked to move to a second-floor room on the inside courtyard. The guy behind the desk didn't protest at all although I wondered if he would try to pawn the first-floor room off on some poor late arrival. If there would be any later arrivals.

I imagine I watched television that night, which I am pretty sure would have been full of bad news--none of which dissuaded me from keeping my appointment the next day. I must have found a cab to take me to the office tower where I was to work. I arrived, settled in, and before long was told that I was being sent home--and this was a first--because of snipers.

Now, I know we were on a fairly high floor with windows on three sides, but I still thought I had a better chance of getting shot by a sniper out on the street. It wasn't my call. Everyone was leaving. At least, I did not have a rental car. This was pre-GPS. That was no day to get lost in Miami.

I had an afternoon to kill in Miami but I couldn't leave the hotel. I suspect I had to eat from the vending machine. That happens on business travel. Maybe there was a restaurant. I have no recollection. There was, however, a pool protected on all sides by the hotel. I sat along the side on a bright sunny day while National Guard helicopters flew overhead. Not very far overhead. I remember the noise. I probably recall the choppers being lower than they were. Maybe because  I could see the guards' faces clearly. Maybe because they had weapons in their arms and their legs were dangling over the side of the copter. That probably wasn't the most relaxing afternoon at the pool, but what was I going to do? Go out for a walk?

I have no recollection if I moved on from Miami the next day. I don't know how I got out of town. Mostly, I remember the silent streets at night and the National Guard helicopters during the day.

Now that I am older, I ask myself why I went to Miami. Was it simply the normal reaction? I think so. Was it smart? I don't think so. Was it typical? Yes. I had to support myself. So whenever needed, I climbed on a plane and flew through a thunderstorm or continued to drive in a snowstorm when I couldn't see the car in front of me. I'd like to think I wouldn't do it again, but I have a feeling I would. And not just because I was on my own and needed the job. I had both a work ethic and an exaggerated view of how important my work was. I think a lot of us did. I used to watch all us road warriors dashing around airports off to meetings and events that seemed so critical. If I hadn't gone to Miami, the world would not have ended. No one would have minded if I'd called and said, "I think I'll wait until the shooting stops." But that thought never occurred to me.

In the year of Covid, so many essential workers are putting themselves in danger to keep the rest of us fed and safe. In the year of Covid, so many people are going to work at the risk of their own health and safety. After the year of Covid, when they look back I believe they will think it was the right thing to do. What I was doing was not sufficiently important to risk life and limb. I wish I had realized that then.

NOTE TO SELF: There was a night flying into Atlanta when the co-worker with you was gripping his seat handle. You had the window seat and were watching lightning striking all around you. You found it exciting. What was wrong with you?

NOTE TO SELF: Once driving to Vermont the snow was so thick on I91 that traffic was moving slower than usual but probably ridiculously fast given the conditions. You stayed in line and were happy to follow the leader until he turned off and you became the leader. It was a hair-raising drive. Your then-boss would have expected you to drive on, but your then-boss was nuts. You should have never gone along.

NOTE TO SELF: You just remembered you climbed into the back of a laundry van in Mexico City. Perhaps this is a good candidate for the list. 

© 2021 Jane Kelly

I could have been killed or badly scratched

I am trying to keep a record of people that I never forgot who have long since forgotten I existed. One of the nicest categories is PEOPLE WHO MAY HAVE SAVED MY LIFE.

In New York . . .

I was walking down Fifth Avenue in New York and wasn't really conscious of where I was when I heard screaming. A lot of screaming.  Before I had time to react, a woman who knew why everyone was afraid ran by, reversed, grabbed my arm and pulled me around the corner. I didn't question. I went with her to safety.

Only then did I follow her gaze.  I looked up and saw something falling from the roof of Trump Tower. Some sort of roofing, a big black sheet, floating down. It wasn't an air-conditioner (the most prominent fear of New York pedestrians) but I bet it still could have packed a wallop. I have to think that woman, who did not have to come back for me, saved my life or more likely spared me a trip to the hospital.

In Barcelona . . .

Francisco Franco was still dead when this happened.  The year was 1976 and I had met a woman from California at my hotel. I am a lazy tourist. She was a conscientious one. It made sense for me to let her show me around the city. She actually had a guide book. A thick one. That she used. Radical. She probably also read up on the political situation in the area before she arrived. Yeah, I didn't really have time for that. 

So, when we were walking down a narrow street and an angry crowd turned the corner and started marching towards us, my alarm bells didn't go off at the level they should have. "You do not want to be here," she said while I was still trying to figure out what was going on. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into a doorway where we watched the protestors pass within inches. Franco had died the year before but protestors were still not viewed kindly in Spain. I don't think she actually saved my life that day, but she did teach me to be aware of the political situation I am walking into.  So who knows what she saved me from in the future?

In Venice . . .

I was never hot looking. Even at my peak, I didn't have to fend off admirers off as I walked the streets of the United States. Standards, however, were different in Italy where the slogan in the seventies appeared to be American Girl, Good Time.  

It was into that atmosphere that I checked out of my hotel in Venice with a Sunday afternoon to kill before I caught the night train to Dubrovnik. I had a several hours to write postcards, drink a few Oranginas, and wander through Venice alone. However, young American girls had difficulty wandering anywhere alone in Italy. I felt as if each American tourist of my age and gender was assigned an admirer upon arrival. On occasion, there would be a conflict and these "admirers" would argue over a visitor. And that was how my Sunday was going when I decided I could not take it anymore. I went to the train station, saw the next train was going to Vienna and got on it. (God bless Eurail passes.)

What I would not know for several days until I saw an International Herald Tribune was that the train I planned on taking had been derailed in northern Italy during a 6.5 earthquake. I probably wouldn't have been killed--no one was--but I would have been thrust into a very chaotic situation. Over a hundred thousand people were left homeless by that quake. So, I owe a debt of gratitude to the annoying young men in Venice.

Before I left Venice, I did get to mail my postcards saying I was taking the night train through northern Italy on my way to Dubrovnik. In those days when you were out-of-touch, you were out-of-touch. No one heard from me for weeks saying that I had not been caught in the earthquake. If they had worried, they never mentioned it. 

NOTE TO SELF: A part of you regretted that you missed experiencing a major earthquake, but then you reminded yourself of your greatest fear: being minorly inconvenienced. In addition, you did not want to be a tourist at someone else's tragedy.

NOTE TO SELF: Two guys did actually get into an argument about who saw you first. Not sure what Italian city. You walked away while they were arguing. One did catch up to you, but all he got to do was explain the World Cup.

I was too cool - or sensitive - for the OJ Simpson trial

"I have to go to the LA County Courthouse to pick up some documents . Would you like to come along?"

You have to consider the emphasis ON and the spacing BETWEEN the words to grasp what Steve was saying.

"I have to go to the . . . . LA . . . . COUNTY . . . . COURTHOUSE . . . to pick up some documents. Would YOU like to come along?"

Would I like to come along? The LA County Courthouse was pretty much the center of the universe in July 1995. At least in the United States. Asking me to accompany him to the Courthouse was the equivalent of asking if I'd like a seat in the dugout at the World Series or on the sidelines at the Super Bowl. I wouldn't get on the playing field but I would get closer than I ever imagined.

For those too young to recall, Orenthal J Simpson, affectionately called OJ by just about everyone in the US--some because of his illustrious football career, some because of his Hertz rental-car commercials--was arrested in 1994. The Heismann-Trophy-winning NFL football player had been accused of killing his wife and her young friend and, even though the evidence made it appear fairly certain that he was guilty, the nation was involved in constant discussion about his guilt or innocence. Strangers debated every detail of the trial. It became our main entertainment. There was no need for soap operas. The trial was on all day. Those with jobs came home from work on the east coast to find the trial on the air live from Los Angeles. And then when the day's coverage ended, there was discussion from lawyers with a whole new profession as talking heads on news shows nightly. The country was obsessed with OJ Simpson.

I would never have gone to the courthouse without an alleged good reason. I saw myself as far too cool to visit or even ride by the Courthouse like a tourist. Too cool and too sensitive. Murder trials did not seem like an appropriate tourist destination but I didn't have to worry. I was visiting the Courthouse on official business. I would be no gawker, no tourist, no hanger-on. I had a valid, if weak, reason for being there. Steve did not really need help carrying a dozen documents.

I think we walked over because parking would have been an issue if we drove. Media vehicles had taken over the nearest parking lot. Some official must have checked Steve and me as we entered the courthouse. If not, the place would have been swarming with press and tourists. I don't recall how, but we were admitted. More impressive that summer than gaining admittance to the back room at Studio 54 in the seventies.

I don't recall the floor we went to. Something like five or six. Today, I did a search for "on what floor was the OJ Simpson trial held." The ninth--which made sense because I recall keeping an eye on the elevators in case the doors opened to reveal--what? Something OJ-related that would have story-telling value?

(I also did a search to see what day the prosecution rested which was Thursday, 7/6/1995. I checked because I was there the next day (when OJ was not) when the defense came to ask that the case be dismissed. It was not. So, apparently, this is my memory of 7/7/1995.)

After standing in the elevator lobby for a few minutes, I realized that not every elevator would stop. The real action was probably outside. "I think I will just wait for you out front." I left Steve in the Country Records office to do all the actual work.

On that day, to disappoint as many Angelenos and/or tourists as possible, all you had to do was step out of the LA County Courthouse and not be Robert Shapiro, Robert Kardashian, Johnny Cochran, (Defense), Marsha Clark or Christopher Darden (Prosecution). The disappointment when I exited was palpable. By the time I crossed the small patio area and climbed the few stairs to street level, all eyes had returned to the door. I passed through the gauntlet of photographers and tourists unnoticed. No, not so much unnoticed as rejected. People had put their cameras and their autograph books down. No one even suspected I was somehow OJ-related which, when I think about it, was a good thing.

The hard part came after I was outside. How could I hang around while not looking like a tourist? I was dressed in business attire. DC business attire. I was more formally dressed than anyone but the lawyers. Still, why didn't I bring a notebook? Or a folder? A smartphone would have come in handy, but I was there a decade too early. I looked at my watch regularly, but there was a limit even for someone making it clear she was waiting for someone. I tried not to stand out. Mostly I tried to take in the show that was going on around me while making it clear I was not part of it.

It was hard to ignore the spectacle outside the OJ Simpson trial. Hanging around at the entrance to the courthouse was a little bit like lingering in the open-air lobby of an office building with shops. There was plenty to buy. T-shirts. Hats. Buttons. I wish I'd written down both the inventory and what was printed on them. I suspect a lot of the writing was of a Free-OJ sentiment. 

Tourists came by but business wasn't brisk. A lot of photography was going on and this was before everyone had a camera in their phone.  The Jesus-Saves man who carried his sign in front of the courthouse every day had a national profile. Visitors posed with him. They posed with two luxury cars. I forget which one belonged to Shapiro. Maybe a Mercedes sedan? The Mercedes convertible that pulled up belonged to Johnny Cochran. His driver was happy to take pictures of tourists posing in front of it.

When the stars of the trial exited, excitement surged through the gauntlet, but there was no matching noise, no cheers for the lawyers headed out. I suspected the attorneys met with the press inside the courthouse. There remained, however, an  assembled crowd to gawk at them. The loudest noise was cameras clicking.

Shapiro came first, expressionless, walking unnaturally slow.  Making sure photographers got their shots? Who knows?

Cochran came a few minutes later walking at the same bizarrely slow pace. Did he pose with tourists? I think he did. He definitely traded pleasantries with them as he took off his jacket and slipped behind the wheel of his convertible. Did someone ride with him? No idea. It's too long ago to recall but, if not, what happened to his driver?

What left the biggest impression was what happened after Cochran pulled away. With the major players gone, it was time for the enterprise that was the OJ Trial to close for the weekend. As in any office on a Friday, the workers chatted. Two reporters asked the guy selling t-shirts what he was doing for the weekend. Theirs was not a perfunctory exchange. They knew each other's details, about their families, their travel. I bet a month later the reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer participated in this weekend ritual telling others about his visitors and the trip he was going to take, the trip on which he would be killed in a car accident. I read the press corps felt the loss. I bet everyone there felt that loss as employees in any organization would.

The groups were still saying their good-byes when Steve came out to meet me. Things were shutting down for the weekend as we walked away. The feeling was in the air.

I felt it was unseemly to observe this circus, yet I couldn't resist. Two people, young people, had died horribly to set this scenario in action. Theirs was a personal tragedy but I was observing a historical event. Not a battle or an election, but a phenomenon in the country's social history that would have a larger impact than any of us knew on that afternoon.

All in all, I am glad that I went along.

PS That day I only saw the defense team.  Many years later when  I began writing mysteries, I would run into Marcia Clark from the prosecution at conferences. She too had written crime novels.

I am still a little annoyed with Anthony Hopkins - LA 1995

UPDATE: After I whined (below) about Anthony Hopkins's "star" behavior it occurred to me to check if he had as yet received his Oscar for playing Hannibal Lecter. He had. I don't like actors assuming that I, and the people around me, are potential groupies. (I don't even know who is famous these days, so I would pose no threat even if I were the type.) However, can you imagine the kind of people that were approaching Anthony Hopkins in those days? Maybe he was right to try to hide. I would, however, like to make a recommendation. If you are going to try to hide from the public perhaps holding a newspaper over your face is not the best approach. Hardly subtle. Who knows if I would have noticed you if you didn't have a newspaper over your face, which now that I think of it, I could see right past? At any rate, all is forgiven.

I was in Los Angeles for a couple of weeks in 1995.  I know it was 1995 for two reasons: 1) the OJ Simpson trial was in progress and 2) Anthony Hopkins was looping the movie, Nixon.

Let me start with Anthony Hopkins. His appearance all over social media today (12/30/2020) prompted these recollections. He has been sober for 45 years--since before I encountered him. I wish him well because of his sobriety but I am still a bit angry at how he underestimated me.

When I had to work for two weeks in the downtown LA office of my DC-based company, our travel agent got me a great deal on an oceanfront room in the Sheraton at end of Santa Monica Boulevard. This made perfect sense since, instead of staying around the block from the office, I got to drive the I10 back and forth from downtown to the beach every morning and every evening at rush hour. However, when I finally got home, I had a balcony that overlooked the Pacific Ocean. And, when I woke up I had a bed with the same view. It was worth the commute. Besides, no one at the office was watching the clock.

Many years later I read that Anthony Hopkins lived in that hotel for a while. I only knew he was there because I ran into him at breakfast one morning. I might not have noticed him but, as the hostess led him past the row of booths where I was sitting, he bowed his head, held a newspaper in front of his face and scurried down the aisle. Yes, he scurried. There was not a big crowd in the restaurant. No one was paying attention to him. There was no need to scurry. I took it personally.

Did he think the excitement of seeing him would cause me to leap out of my seat and block his way? Did he think that I would be so overwhelmed that I would stop him to ask a million questions? Did he think that I would eavesdrop on his conversations? Okay, I did that. But I couldn't help it. He sat in the booth behind me facing in my direction. That was how I discovered he was looping Nixon.  

I listened to his conversation but don't recall anything he said. However, he was very friendly to the waitress. They seemed to have an ongoing friendship. My only conclusion is that he was very nice, and I would have had wonderful things to say about him but all I remember is that he dissed me. I'm almost over it.

Luckily, I had the OJ Simpson trial to divert my attention. But that's another story.

PS I've also had a grudge against Mary Steenburgen for much longer.

I still think of that bird . . .

For at least a week she had harassed me.  Flapping her wings in an effort to keep me away from the tree that overhung the driveway. Someone had to explain to me that she was probably protecting her nest. I just thought she was a nasty bird. I didn't know a lot about nature. Still don't. 

This bird was pretty annoying. I had to walk about twenty yards from my front door to the car and that brought me seriously close to her nest. Looking back on it, I should have backed the car in. That would have allowed me to put some distance between the tree and me. Maybe she wouldn't have swooped and squawked so much.

Then one morning when I opened my front door, she was waiting, standing on the rock that was my front step. I can still see her standing there. Not angry but somehow upset. She chirped. Not a happy chirp, but a sad sound, a plaintive sound. I had no idea what she wanted or what she wanted me to do.

Fruitlessly, I talked to her in a calm voice asking her what the problem was.  She followed me to the car, not harassing me but flying quietly, beseeching me. I had no idea what to do. I could only guess that something was amiss in her nest.
 
I didn't have a ladder or any idea what to do when I got up in the tree. At the time, I didn't know to try the town's animal control. 

I still think about that bird, that mother. I know given the lifespan of a bird, she would be long gone.  But I still feel bad. I understood.  I tried to be kind, but I didn't know how to help. It still pains me that I let her down.

Wandering into an alternate reality . . .

Oddly I entered both of these alternate (alternative if you’re British) realities in Cambridge Massachusetts. Could there be a portal?

Those of you who read Spenser novels knew that Robert B. Parker's detective, Spenser, often took his girlfriend to the Harvest Restaurant, an actual restaurant in Cambridge Massachusetts. Based on his cover jacket photos, Parker seemed to bear a strong resemblance to his character.  And, based on pictures I'd seen of his wife, although she was not a dead ringer for the dectective's girlfriend Susan, there were certainly similarities.

Simply dining at the Harvest put me in Spenser's world, but I really felt I had crossed the line from reality to fantasy when I looked across the room and saw Parker dining with his wife. It was as if Spenser and Susan had come in for dinner.  I would have found it interesting to run into the Parkers anywhere.  But in that restaurant? Magic.

It didn't hit me at first when Matt Damon walked by me on Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. I was outside Harvard Yard waiting for a shuttle bus to the Longwood Medical Campus. The night was bitterly cold and he was appropriately dressed in a peacoat and dark wool cap. He passed the bus stop, crossed Mass Ave and headed down the street the name of which I've long forgotten. For years I thought of it as an interesting diversion until I realized he could easily be his character from Good Will Hunting heading out to find Minnie Driver.  How about dem apples?

I don't know why I didn't think of this when I first wrote this. It is kind of a twist on the same topic. I once left a Kurt Russell movie on 23rd Street in New York and walked down to the Tribeca Grill. My friend and I hadn't been seated that long when Kurt Russell walked in wearing the wardrobe from the movie.

It's nice to get away from reality once in a while.

ADDED APRIL 2023

I forgot a somewhat similar incident with James Stewart - although it took me years to confirm it. 

I was walking along Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills when I saw an elderly man in out-dated and ill-fitting clothes standing on the corner looking a bit lost. I recognized Jimmy Stewart but figured it couldn't be the actor because if Jimmy Stewart was in such bad condition, someone would be taking care of him.  But, I never forgot.

Enter the Internet. I found clips of a movie he made with Bette Davis about the problems of the elderly.  There was a scene on a nearby block and Jimmy Stewart was wearing the same clothes. Actually, it took decades and the invention of the Internet to verify this. 

I guess this isn't really the same. It might be better included in a post about film sets I've wandered into. I"ll start a list.

Rocky II

Sex and the City

Michael J. Fox

Miracle on Thirty-Fourth Street

Three Men and a Baby

Wolf

???

Look at Me. I'm Walking Down the Street

Christopher Reeve is the reason I know I am not psychic. 

When you live in New York you get used to running into celebrities as well as to the idea that they do not make eye contact. So it was really odd when Christopher Reeve, at that time a movie star best known as Superman, not only made eye contact with me, he held it. It was as if we were sharing a secret, as if he were saying, "Look at me. I'm walking down the street." I know that was what I thought because those were the words I used to describe the encounter the next day to a friend who had missed him by a few minutes.

About ten years later, the actor had the horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed. In the years between the date of his accident and his death in 2004, I never once doubted that he would, against all odds, walk again. 

I have no idea what I thought, but I knew what I believed. I was certain that someday he would walk down Columbus Avenue and marvel at the fact that he was, in fact, walking down the street, that he would look at someone and say, "Look at me. I'm walking down the street."

Sadly, I was wrong.