You Never Know Who You'll See

My city is a crazy amalgamation of who knows who you'll see in the Publix parking lot. Tonight, it was Martin Luther King, III. As I him to showed PrepGirl and BrownBear, BrownBear piped up, "I know Ted Turner's granddaughter. She's in the grade ahead of me in school." And Hamilton Jordan came to PrepGirl's 8th grade Grandparents' Day.

A hundred years ago, before Prep was born, I was bestest friends with a crazy girl named Vicky. She was crazy in the funnest sense of the word. We did things that I had only imagined in my white bread upbringing. I think my mama and daddy would have died to find me in Yasmine's Fish Supreme eating with the Muslims. The black Muslims. But oh my word - I have never eaten fish and bean pie like that before in my life. And Vicky got me to Deacon Burton's Grill for the best down home cooking I have ever eaten. Vicky got me to places in this city I never would have experienced because I am a fraidy cat. Gracious - we went to Cancun for girls night out. She talked the ticket agent into putting us into first class because there weren't any seats together and I was a sissy flyer. We came back three days later - three days of tequila drinking and dancing on the beach and tequila drinking. LawyerBoy picked us up at the airport - I got back into the country with a notarized, photocopied copy of my birth certificate that I had kept in my back pocket (pre 9/11, obviously) - and he just shook his head. There had been lots of turbulence coming back and I had thrown my food (yes, real food) all over my shirt and shorts. I hadn't slept in days and I had sprained my ankle in some drunken escapade. (There was a lot of LawyerBoy headshaking.)

Crazy Vicky married the father of the children she had once nannied. (I know. I told you she was crazy.) Her wedding was at their West End mansion (and I mean mansion) one Labor Day weekend. Her fiance was one crazy Atlanta lawyer - at one time, he had been one of Wayne Williams' attorneys. The guest list was a veritable list of movers and shakers in Atlanta. I think Martin Luther King, III was there. I came flying out of Vicky's sitting room and ran head long into Andrew Young. "Hello, Mr. Mayor." "Hello, Teachergirl. Is our bride ready?" Mr. Mayor officiated at the ceremony. While this ceremony was taking place, LawyerBoy pointed out the people he knew and those he thought were supposed to be in jail. Really - we had had a rash of unscrupulous behavior and several convictions. I don't know if they got time off for weddings or what.

As we were eating wedding cake (some of the best wedding cake I have ever eaten), somebody said, "Aren't Teachergirl and LawyerBoy cute as a button? They look just like they walked out of Thirty Something." Looking around, I realized I did look like I had fallen out of Thirty Something and into A Different World.

Vicky and I had babies within two months of each other. One of the first outings we took them on was to a baseball game at the old Fulton County Stadium. And we sat in Hank Aaron's seats.

So, tonight, as we pulled out of Publix after seeing MLK,III, I drove them to Turner Field for one of the Braves games down Hank Aaron Drive and I thought that this town is pretty amazing.