Wendy, The Fair Daredevil

A long time ago, before we crossed paths, the Fair Wendy rode a motorcycle from Ohio to Pittsburgh and back, then later to Chicago. She loved the independence, the adventure, and the wind.

She still has the motorcycle, under a tarp behind the house. Fortunately (from my perspective) it’s too rusted to be cranked up.

Later, when she needed to start over, Wendy left Colorado and headed east. Lacking wheels and money, she hitch-hiked alone, spending at least one night in a local jail (as a guest she says), in lieu of sleeping under a tree.

[Update: Oops! My memory & imagination got mixed here: Wendy clarified that she did have a car for her eastern journey; but she stayed in homeless shelters, and the police in a shelterless village put her up in a motel, rather than a cell. It was still a starting-over adventure.)

Finally, she arrived in the Triangle region of eastern North Carolina, where she hadn’t been before. There the Spirit told her she was home. (She talks with the Spirit frequently.)

I suspect one reason for this is that the Spirit knew NC comes furnished with a cluster of Quaker meetings (Friends had in fact been in NC for about 300 years), which was her spiritual community.

For a few years there, to earn her keep, Wendy delivered newspapers on a predawn route in a rundown, mostly Black neighborhood with a tough reputation. She insists she was unafraid, and was never physically threatened.

After that, she studied architecture at NC State University, and when the Iraq war started took time off from classes to join and organize antiwar protests. Then her meeting picked her to join the Board of Quaker House, a peace project near Fort Bragg, where she soon got involved with more peace protests. She also met, and then got involved with the recently-hired Quaker House Director;that would be me.

Wendy finished her design degree; in 2012 I retired from Quaker House, and we moved to Durham (ten years ago come November 30).

I say all this to make clear that even now, while outwardly demure, highly skilled with computer-based design,and devoted to jigsaw puzzles and all things Jane Austen, Wendy still has a taste for adventure.

For instance, over the past two Springs, she has turned our formerly cookie-cutter front yard into a tiny wild meadow. In the process, she took on the city’s yard cops, who said such horticultural saturnalias were illegal, and won.

But now, in just a few days, she’s going to embark on what began as a routine civic service, yet with each passing day feels more like a reckless daredevil, death-defying feat:

On Tuesday, she’s going to work at the polls.

What, me worry?

Am I alarmed by news from the Pelosi household in San Francisco?

Do I shudder at reports like this in-depth investigation by Reuters detailing death threats against election workers in many states, and the persistently indifferent or inept responses by law enforcement?

Do I remember the horror-movie testimony of Georgia election workers who were driven from their home by “Stop-the-steal terror?

Would  I rather she stay home, do this new puzzle over and re-read Emma for the 157th time??

Like she would listen to my nervous-nellying?

Wendy says the polling place she’s assigned to is in a largely Black neighborhood; the longtime workers know many voters, are sticklers for their procedures, and have each other’s backs.

And besides, polling places are usually quiet, often almost deserted, hushed like libraries. They’ve usually been that way when I’ve been there.

Usually.

(Of course, there was this coup and massacre in Wilmington NC in 1898 — that was in November, too.)

But that was then. Now we don’t get threatening phone calls at the house — oh wait: we do get lots of calls every day from unidentified numbers, which we don’t answer. But most are probably politicians asking for money, right?  And my voicemail is spotty.

Well, interesting times. On  Tuesday  I’ll just fidget all day, then I’ll check back with you about Wendy on Wednesday morning.

Fortunately, she won’t be riding a motorcycle.