Beaufort, SC

Today, Friday, August 14th, 2009 I found myself most intrigued this evening when a lady walked into Ruby Tuesday in Beaufort, South Carolina. She seemed like a normal guest despite the fact she told us how many was in her party and then proceeded to seat herself at the table of her choice. She then ordered a sweet tea and made herself at home. I paid little attention to her for we were busy at the time although i did note she had a stack of papers and seemed to be working on some type of project she had with her.
As time went on she was still sitting and I noticed she had ordered no food. Not to odd since some people come in on business or come in early to wait for others to arrive. It wasn't until an hour or two later that a server approached me to tell me this homeless woman was bothering our guest asking them for rides to a hotel and asking to use their cell phones. Evidently she was also handing out flyers. I came out to see what was going on and she was once again quietly sitting at her table studying over her documents. I left her alone. Her appearance was almost like that of a nice older church lady. She was light skinned black and had some freckles on her face. She was modestly dressed but appeared as someone who you could just grab and hug if you knew them well enough. She had luggage with her and a few miscellaneous groceries,,, which was the only true sign she might be homeless.
She soon moved to another servers section, closer to the door and I again received information from one of my servers that she was interrupting our guest so I went to approach her table where , once again she was quietly seated. I barely got two words in before she began to speak to me in a soft and mesmerizing tone. She let me know she had just come from a battered shelter for women and they had given her a reembursement voucher to stay at an inn up the road but she was not sure if they would also pay for the cab and asked if there was any way in which i might be able to help her get there. I told her I would take her myself if i was allowed to leave my position, which I wasn't but I could not obligate my staff or any of my guest to do so but would be more than happy to call the Beaufort Police department to help her if she needed some assistance. She did not become alarmed at this and probably because I gave her no reason to be alarmed for I wasn't trying to get her in any trouble but she clearly stated that her violent relationship with a cop would suggest she not have anything to do with the police since they team together and she was a vicitim of their brutality. There was a lot of conviction in her voice about this.
My impression of this woman was that she was educated yet almost schizophrenic in nature. She said she knew my position and could see I wanted to help so if maybe I could just see what the fare for a cab was then she could just get to the inn before she fell asleep. She kept telling me she was so tired. I obliged and went to my kitchen where I asked a cook if they could possibly take her when they left who said I had a much bigger heart than they did and they could not. I called a friend and they could not oblige me either but did note that they had heard form several people that I seemed to attract homeless and crazy people. laughing or not, I had someone call the cab company to find out the rate.
I returned to he lady with a rate of 8 dollars and found she had also took the assistance of the table behind her in using their cell phone. I asked her not to bother the guest but told her she was free to use my phone at any time she needed. At this point she had somehow managed to pass out many of her flyers to our guest through out the restaurant. She said the rate was fair and asked if I could call them. Moments later the cab showed up and I approached her once again and she sweetly told me how kind we all were and that I was a blessed person and she motioned to the bags of food she had with her. She asked if she could leave them. I asked why and she said she had been given the food by a nice person but she had already eaten for the day and she would like for someone in our staff who might have children and need it more than her to take it. She said she needed to lighten her load for her travels. I told her I was sure I could find someone who needed the food.
I began to help her with her baggage and she thanked me many times. I was never afraid of her nor did I ever feel sorry for her. I walked her out to the cab and when he popped his trunk I asked her if she would like me to place the baggage in his trunk and she declared that she needed to keep it close because it held important documents for her. I helped her into the cab and felt sorry in a way I didn't get to talk to her more. We shook hands and I told her I wished her a great journey, She said she would be leaving soon and handed me a few of her papers so I could be aware of the oppression going on. Said she like to hand them out as she traveled on. We shook hands again and I smiled at her because she was on a mission and doing things most of us only dreamed of doing. ROCK OUT MARILYN GIBBS!
Anyway I started reading the paper and when I came home I read some to my friends about microwave oppression and so forth and we decided to look it up. This is where we stumbled across the amazing amount of blogs written about this lady. My friends who hadn't even met her became slightly obsessed reading the blogs and they even stopped by the inn to see if she was still there. She wasn't... this is about 6 hours after I have crossed her path btw. i can't even say if she ever even made it to the inn. If you respond to me I will send you a copy of her recent paper she was handing out. It contains receipts from Savannah and the Suntrust Bank in which she was in or I am assuming.
ai see no date on the Kroger receipt but it has a variety of canned foods and cheeses listed on it. , mostly really healthy items or odd items like kraut and garlic and sardines... and canned veggies like beets pears , spinach. the card on it has Matthew Woodhouse listed as a Suntrust branch manager. I might give hima call. Both of these come from Gwinnett Street.

i appreciate the sharing on the blog. Thank you for letting me share with you. I sometimes wonder if there is a lot to what this lady is tryng to say but isn't able to say it in a way she can be taken seriously.