Rigatoni with “Sunday gravy” at Potenza. (Photo: Scott Suchman)
I recently had the chance to meet with some friends that were visiting from Toronto. We decided to meet for dinner with another friend of ours who lives in DC at a relatively new Italian restaurant called Potenza that is just a block or two from the White House. The food was good. They are known for their oval pizzas, but none of us ordered pizza.
After dinner, I decided to walk around the neighborhood downtown and see if I could find a recipient for my $10. I walked for about 20 minutes, not really seeing anyone that I felt was right, until I spotted Valerie. And boy was I ever right. This one is amazing, wait until you see the video!
It was about 10:30pm and Valerie was carrying three bags and walking with a pronounced limp north on 11th Street. When she got to H Street I gathered the courage to stop her and ask her to accept my $10. The 55-year-old mother of four, grandmother of 12, told me she liked what I was doing but preferred not to participate. She put her bags down and we started to talk. I wasn’t going to let her get away!
Washington, DC, April 5, 1968 (photo: unknown)
She told me that she was born here in the nation’s capital. Valerie remembers the riots that erupted in Washington after the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “They burnt down this jewelry store over on H and 8th Streets in Northeast. There was a black man walking around where the jewelry store used to be throwing diamonds up in the air!” Things are better now though she says.
She talks to me about her 89-year-old mother. “She moved here from Ohio and she’s still here. Sharp and in good health.” I bet she is a good woman because she certainly raised a good woman.
Valerie was on her way home from work where she cleans offices. “Where were you when I needed you…when I was broke!” she says. Her laughter quickly subsides and she goes back to telling me that I should just give it to somebody else. We go back and forth on this and she says, I could use it to take a cab home instead of a bus, but I can’t do that. I asked her why not and she said, “I need [the ten dollars], but I don’t need that bad.”
There was a point when I thought that I had convinced her to take the money. Then she really started getting anxious, almost panicking a little bit. Her eyes darted back and forth behind her large frame glasses sweeping the streets for someone to give it to. She just wanted to get rid of it as fast as possible so she wasn’t tempted to use it on herself.
Well, take a look at what happens when she finds who she is going to give it to and then gives it to them right before my eyes! Her face lights up so much when she decides what to do with it, it’s great. Check it out!
I waited with Valerie until her bus came. The S2 pulled up and she got on and headed toward her home in Southeast.
Wow…what a great night. I only wish she would have given me her contact information so that I could keep in touch with her and make sure she comes to the year-end celebration in December! If anyone knows her, let me know.
Year of Giving 