The Woman With The Long Brown Hair:

In the mid 1980's I had kind of a weird thing happen one morning.  I was a single mom living in Eugene, and working for an insurance company. Our neighborhood was not quite "bad", but there was a lot of foot traffic, and the street was one block removed from one of the main thoroughfares.  We lived on 8th and Jackson, if you know where that is, about a block down from The Frontier Market (one of Eugene's hippie stores).

I had gone to the supermarket the night before and bought some groceries; some staples. Besides milk, and hamburger and bread, I also bought things like green beans and cream of mushroom soup.  Which was a good thing, come to find out later.

I woke up that morning with a bit of free time on my hands before I had to get ready for work.  My little girls were getting to sleep in a bit before daycare.  I had taken my bath the night before, so at the time I would have been normally been in the shower and getting ready for work, I heard a knock on the door.


I thought, now who is that? I answered the door and there was a tall woman with long hair standing on my porch. She didn't look scary, but she didn't look quite right either, in manner; not physically.  The woman told me that she was hungry, and could she please come in and have something to eat? 

Though surprised, my intuition was not really alarmed, so I let her in; not something I would usually ever do. It was like a God thing, if you know what I mean.

The lady headed into the kitchen, and I asked her what she would like to eat.  I offered up cereal, eggs, toast, etc. She said, no, what she really wanted was a can of green beans mixed in with a can of cream of mushroom soup, heated up.  I thought, that is weird ... if I wouldn't have bought those last night, I wouldn't even have them here to feed her what she wants.  (Those were in the days before I had a stocked pantry.)  I said okay, cooked up her requested meal, and asked her what she wanted to drink ... milk, juice, coffee?  She said no, what she really wanted was some Pepsi. So, that is what she drank. 

She was a good eater, and ate everything right up. As the girls were beginning to stir around and awake, she said thank you, and she left.

After I got the girls ready and took them to daycare, I went to work at the insurance company.  In the break room, I told everybody about what had happened that morning.  Most of the people scolded me, telling me that I was crazy, and that she could have killed all of us.  I knew that they were just worried about me, but wasn't sure that I deserved to be in so much trouble for just being nice!

Then, my friend Jan sat down next to me and quietly said that I had done the right thing, and that it was okay to entertain angels among us.  Thank you, Jan, I still remember your kindness, 25 years later.

I know that the lady wasn't really an angel.  I later saw her around town, and learned later that she had been in a bike accident, and had some sort of brain injury.  But it was still odd to me that I had just bought exactly what she wanted for breakfast ... green beans with cream of mushroom soup, heated up.  And that I even let her in.  

I wonder what she is doing now?


The end.

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