Forty years ago on Tuesday, Sept. 13 my company, Houston Stage Equipment, loaded the Houston Ballet’s “Swan Lake” scenery into a trailer headed for Jones Hall. We had all been up all night so we headed home for a nap before the entire crew got together at Larry, my business partner’s, house for some refreshments and fajitas catered by this little local Mexican restaurant named Ninfas. About 2:00 a.m. I got on my bike and motored home. I pulled into the garage and headed to my second floor home in the little fourplex.
The phone rang. I don’t think my phone had ever rung before. When I picked up the receiver I heard my landlady, who lived in the apartment below me, alarmed that the light in the garage had just gone out. I assured Ms. Brown that I would check on it, and halfway down the outdoor staircase I saw a young man on a ladder climbing toward the window of the apartment over the garage. I yelled. He ran. All the neighbors came out, (I can yell quite loudly) and down from the garage apartment came a women, barefoot and in a red nightshirt. We had never met.
Ms. Brown informed us that she had called the police, so we had to wait. Everyone else went inside but the young woman and me. We sat on the steps and talked. Two hours later (it seemed like minutes) the police arrived. We relayed our stories to the police, they left, we talked and the sun came up. “I’ve gotta go to work”, so I quickly changed from my clean jeans and shirt to my work jeans and shirt and headed to the shop.
We had lots of change orders and additions to do, so I worked long hours for the next three days, but Saturday was open, ostensibly to sleep, but I also thought how do I get the attention of the woman that attracted ladderman.
Early Saturday, I fussed around in the garage working on my bike waiting to hear if someone was moving around in the apartment above me and Ms. Brown approached me with another emergency. Her cat had died and she wanted to know if I would bury it for her. So, as my grandmother would have said, “I braved up” and knocked on the garage apartment’s door and asked if she would like to go for a walk. She said yes.
Our first date was a walk down the railroad tracks in Houston’s east end to bury a cat.
The romance got better from there.
And that is how I met Kenan.
Happy 40th Kenan!
Laughing Frog Farm 