Strange encounters

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high
and don't be afraid of the dark
Gerry & the Pacemakers 1965

When I went with Dominic my grandson to pick up a guest from America, the first thing Dom wanted to know about was the gangs & shooting.
I suppose that in our day, we'd have asked about Cowboys & Indians but still been fascinated by the guns.
That's the reputation that America has in England; a pretty violent place.

So what I want to know is, how come my Brother-in-law and his wife (H&S) don't seem to have heard about it?
They always seek out the cheapest hotels in the cheapest areas and wander around, seemingly oblivious to the menace around them. They don't need to scrimp to save every cent but it has become a challenge to them. (We are happy to take advantage of it. H&S browbeat the owner of our present motel down to $90 a night from the $119 he started at).
The tales they have to tell could make Crocodile Dundee cringe but they have come to no harm whatsoever in the 10 or so years that they have been doing it.
Perhaps they've got it right and the rest of us are a bunch of scaredy cats!
One thing is certain, without their derring-do (how often can you slip that phrase into a conversation?) they would never have met Dorothy.

Dorothy is 75 and lives in Watts, scene of the 1992 race riots sparked off by the televised beating of Rodney King by members of the LAPD who were subsequently aquitted.
It was a pretty depressed area then and despite a lot of input since that time is still considered a no-go area.

One day on one of their travels, H&S passed through Watts on the train and spotted a beautiful rose garden. At the next station they got off & walked back to get a better look.
The gardens are part of the Watts Senior Citizen Center which is a seniors day centre. It is quite a large complex with very large gardens, all looked after by Dorothy in her job as Caretaker/gardener.
It happens that Dorothy was working in the garden that day and was proud to show H&S around her domain, inviting them for lunch and providing coffee.
From that start, a lifelong friendship has blossomed and H&S never fail to visit Dorothy at least once during their annual 5 month trip.

Last Thursday, Val & I finally got to meet Dorothy when we called in on our way south with H&S and we were amazed. As you will see from the picture, Dorothy is about as far removed from a 75 year old gardener as you can imagine. I think we'd both visualised a little old lady pottering around not the upright, fit looking lady that we found.
And she was charming. Quiet and modest and clearly overcome by seeing her friends again.
The gardens have won several awards and in April, will be officially re-named the Dorothy Sampson gardens. This is a fact that Dorothy is very proud of but she is too reticent to boast about it. Naturally, she wanted to share the news with her friends from London and gave them the certificate that she was presented with, as a gift.

What an unlikely scenario, the friendship between a black lady from the poor part of L.A. and a couple from the English countryside, all started by a combination of a shared love of flowers

Naivety/stupidity/bravery? I'll leave it to you to decide.

All we know is that they make great travelling companions
.