Friday night, Halloween weekend, 1981, Robert Coontz brought someone new home for dinner. I stood in the living room to meet her and she walked around the far side of the coffee table, nose in the air. She wasn’t avoiding me (she said), just sniffing her surroundings, having been a dog in a former life. That was my introduction to Merri Rudd, my belovéd-to-be.
[photo: mjh & MR in Landmark Shopping Center photo machine, Alexandria, VA, January 1984.]