Amber Mac

This is my last night in DC.  Aside from meeting some amazing (and outgoing!) people before and after my keynote at ACTE, the one thing that sticks in my mind is my three-hour trip Sunday night to Georgetown.

I met up at Zed's with a friend for dinner.  After great 'n messy Ethiopian eats, we wandered up a nearby residential street (let's just say we're not map people, so we were guessing the river was that way).  Within minutes, we saw a friendly furry canine and his owner.  We quickly discovered their names, Woofie and Peter (respectively).  Peter took pity on us and offered to give us a "real" tour of his adopted hometown. 

With Woofie in tow, we followed 82-year-old Peter down crickety streets and learned about his life as a newspaper man in Buffalo and Washington, DC.  He escorted us to the Potomac River, just alongside the newly-designed Swedish embassy (a visual treat).  While gazing up the river, Peter pointed out the boathouse where he used to keep his rowing scull.  Between stories, including how Peter met his wife some 50 odd years ago, random strangers greeted us to say hello (but, most likely, to pet 5-year-old Woofie). 

We continued our tour back up towards M St., and by now I'm sure everyone passing us by thought we were Peter's kids (and of course we didn't tell them any different).  We stopped briefly now and again for Peter to check the weather on his iPhone, letting us know we would have sunshine today, and to show us how easy it was to take photos with his handy little device. 

By now we had spent a good long hour with Peter, and we figured his wife would want to see him walk on through the door, so we tried to say goodbye.  Peter wouldn't have any of it.  He asked us to follow him up to his home so we could see a real Georgetown residence, including his tree-lined backyard where Woofie finally ran free off his leash.

As the sun set, we politely said goodbye to Peter and gave Woofie a hug (she drooled with delight).  The moral of the story is that it only takes a minute to turn a stranger into a friend, and this blog post is my thanks to Peter for making it so easy.

May 19th, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (19)