Ken's Blog

Forceful manner, bordering on the aggressive. But not, I thought, intentionally so. More a directness devoid of any of the normal social softening. Blunt. She was a school teacher from a little south of San Francisco, eager, she said, to escape California. But she’d got stuck further up the coast in Gold Beach. She was very sketchy on the details and it didn’t seem wise to pry further.

I’d pulled into a small rest stop besides the highway. Brief coffee break before pressing on to my night’s planned stop with host Peggy. Approached, largely out of curiosity I’d thought, by the woman whilst I was perched on a bench munching an apple.

I should join her in San Jose. We’d go to lunch at Apple’s headquarters with a friend. Most insistent. She repeated her e-mail address several times, despite the obvious absence of anything on my part to write it down. I offered her my website address. Explained that I could be contacted through it. And then she left. Never heard from her again. A curious encounter.