Most people call
her Margaret but, over the years, I came to shorten it first to Maggie and then
to 'Mags'. She is one of the true Wonders of the World—a lovely and dear woman
with, as Tennessee Ernie Ford said of 'Big John', “one first or iron and the
other of steel. If the right one don't get you then the left one will.”
Energetic, overly scrupulous, bright and sometimes verging on 'perky', Mags can
charm people out of remarkable donations to the Soup Kitchen she runs, make
each volunteer feel like the most important person in Margaret's world or any
other and stare down a 250 pound, drunk rowdy in two seconds flat. I've seen
her do all that and more—much more. She is a marvel. If she didn't exist, the
Greater Waterbury Interfaith Ministry would have to invent her—she's that vital
to the serving of 300 people lunch each day and handing out shopping bags of
food to another 200 a week.
When Mags came,
the whole thing was in doubt. The previous Soup Kitchen Coordinator was in
jail. He had been arrested in Danbury—40 miles away or so—for beating up his
girlfriend on the street. Then the Danbury police discovered he was selling
whole chickens out of the back of the Soup Kitchen Van. He was a bad dude—came
in, when he was out on parole—and confronted the Verger and me in the sanctuary
of St. John's with his finger (I pray it was his finger!) in the pocket of his
jacket and told me he knew where I lived. I never figured out why he thought it
was me that had caused him to lose his job. Mostly it was assault and robbery
that did that. I did go tell the police in the town where I lived and in
Waterbury that I had been threatened. It's the only time I'd ever done that,
though I had been threatened before. I just believed Amos more than I believed
anyone else.
(An aside: after
Amos was sent to jail, two detectives from the Waterbury Police Department
visited me. They told me that Amos, during the questioning, had told them I had
tried to sexually proposition him.
“What did he say I did?” I asked.
The Italian
detective, very embarrassed to be talking to a priest—even an Episcopal
priest—about such a thing said, “he said he was in his van in the parking lot
and you asked him for oral sex for money.”
I thought for a
moment about that. Then I asked, “did he say I wanted him to perform oral sex
on me or that I wanted to pay him to let me perform oral sex on him?”
The Irish
detective—most all police detectives in Waterbury are Irish or Italian—turned a
bright red and replied: “He said you wanted to perform oral sex on him....”
I smiled. “Then
it isn't true,” I said.
One of them,
Italian or Irish, said, “Father, this isn't a joking matter....” And I suddenly
realized it wasn't, not at all. My problem is, most everything is initially a
'joking matter' until it isn't.)
I helped
interview the applicants for the Soup Kitchen job—someone who would rid us of
the stench of Amos and put us on the right track of feeding people. Since the
Soup Kitchen was at St. John's, I was obviously involved. We needed someone I
could get along with.
Certainly, I
could get along with Mags. She was charming and witty and self-effacing and
smart...most of the things I like in another person. But I knew something none
of the others on the committee—smitten with her charm, wit and intellegence—I
knew she could not be...not ever...supervised. This was a woman who was so at
home in her own skin and so clever and charming that there would be no way to
rein her in. She would do whatever the hell she wanted to do and either charm you
into thinking it was your idea or back you down with force of will to agree.
“Margret,” I
told her in the interview, “I don't believe you can be supervised.”
She objected
with all her charm, with, self-effacement and guile.
I held up my
hand and stopped her. I knew she would do a remarkable job but simply would
not, could not be supervised.
“You know I'm
right about that,” I said.
She wrinkled her
nose and smiled her remarkable smile and said, softly, “yes, you're right....”
She was
unanimously hired—I didn't vote, thinking that supervising her was the
Director's problem, not mine. Little did I know that for most of the next
decade I would mostly be the one who couldn't supervise her, that little
wrinkled nose and smile would convince me a hundred times that she was right
and I was wrong and she should do whatever she wanted to do.
Unsupervisable.
That for sure. And a marvel, a wonder, someone to write home about, the
best—very best and more—person to do that job and do it just the way she
wanted.
Over the years,
full of more drama than I need to tell you or you need to know, Mags went from
being the Soup Kitchen Coordinator to being the Director of the whole agency
and its over a quarter of a million dollar budget. She battled directors,
refused to be supervised, did the right thing over and over until, having
exhausted the Board and everyone around her—did I mention her 'energy', charm,
commitment?--we finally just did the right thing, the thing she knew was right
all along, and put her in charge of everything. Good for us, we did the right
thing. (It was all Mag's idea all along....)
It was with the
guests that she shined most brightly. It was her idea to call them 'guests'
rather than 'clients'--the social worker vernacular for people who came for
services and food. Over the years, Mags developed a treasure trove of
'connections'--medical personnel, social workers, housing specialists,
businesses and groups who brought in food and services just to see Mags smile
at them and tell them they were the best, the very best. Most often she would
tell them they were 'Awesome, simply awesome!' And through the alchemy of her
enthusiasm they were turned from flesh and blood, full of uncertainties and
self-doubt into, that's right, 'simply awesome' heroes. So people went out of
their way and beyond what was expected to make sure Mags' 'guests' had flu
shots, health tests, alcohol and drug counseling, job training, help with
housing issues, legal advice, guest chefs (everyone from church youth groups to
political figures) and respect from the larger society than they expected or
perhaps deserved. Mags' people were loved by all, sometimes against their
better judgment, because she loved them.
An urban soup
kitchen, open to everyone and anyone, is not always a calm and peaceful place.
Sometimes, under other coordinators, it was not a safe place to be. Street
people and the urban poor are just like every other group of people, which
means some of them are rough and angry and violent. Before Mags, there were a
couple of 911 calls a week for drunk and drugged up folks and for fights. Once
she arrived it took only a while before the only 911 calls were when she was
genuinely concerned about the health and welfare of a guest. It didn't hurt
that she was married to a policeman and the beat cop for the Green area was her
cousin. Nothing calms things down so quickly as having someone with a huge gun
and a stick you could destroy a skull with hanging around. Behavior and
temperaments improve greatly when cops are around. But mostly it was Mags. She
is short and petite and has long blond hair and dresses very well. She is
usually soft spoken and a bit shy. But more than once I've seen her step
between to brutes about the throttle each other and, waving her arms, say
something like, “Beautiful people, this can't happen at our lovely Soup
Kitchen....”
It's not just
'music' that soothes the savage beast—Mags could do that too.
She also had
just the right touch with volunteers. I heard someone describe the volunteers
as 'do-gooders and criminals'. Which was accurate since roughly half the people
who worked for her were doing court ordered community service. They never
wanted to be there but she would somehow cajole and persuade and baffle them
into working hard and halfway enjoying it. Something about her appealed to
everyone's better angel. And in all that, she didn't suffer fools lightly.
Over time I came
to refer more and more of the people who 'dropped in' to ask for help from the
church to Mags. First of all, she was usually better able to actually 'help'
them than I was. Secondly, she had an unerring bull-sh*t detector and could
ferret out those who were pulling a con in a few sentences. She actually would
take me to task when I gave people money without asking her. She would shake
her blond head and 'tisk' and tell me I just threw that money into the
Naugatuck River.
convincing people to contribute
the Christmas parties and care for children
how calm it became—cops involved
her commitment, her love
