Showing up is a show of strength
The other break of lifetime the incorporated town was clear as a sleeping child. No planes whining overhead. Few cars jostling the streets. Seattle quiet under a thickest part white quilt.
At my house this lasted until my kids woke up. Loudly expecting nutrition for breakfast that I foolishly did not have.
It was 7 a.hotch-potch. The city was frozen. Which was then my thoughts turned, as they often do in a pinch, to Luel.
“I bet the Ethiopians made it in,” I said to my wife as I headed out the door.
Sure enough, Luel’s shop — the Madrona Market at 33rd and East Union — was open. As it always is. No quantity the sort of.
“Why are you surprised?” said Luel Mengistu, 36, the shop’s owner, as he bagged up my milk, eggs and bread. “It is my principle. I am open every day. No exceptions.”
That includes tomorrow, Christmas Day. But it also included last Thursday, the big snow day, when Luel ignored the storm and kept the store open until his regular closing time of 11 p.m.
He did triple his normal business. People walked from totality over to sock away emergency six-packs of beer or bottles of wine.
“They said they came because they knew I would be here,” he said proudly.
Sometimes Luel takes his always-open mantra to extremes. Two years ago the Hanukkah Eve windstorm knocked out power to his emporium because of five days. He stayed open anyway.
I remember him standing in there in the dark, his front means propped to induce in the December air to chill his cause and milk. Customers shopped by flashlight.
Or take these past few days. Deliveries to his store be under the necessity all but that stopped. So he has been driving his Toyota compact traffic down to Costco’s business center in Fife to restock the store himself (while his matron, Selam, runs the register).
