
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, May 8, 1995                   TAG: 9505080032
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SPIRITUAL ACQUAINTANCE

ONE DAY last week, I had to run out to the post office. A little errand. Fifteen minutes, tops. And at a time of day when I knew from experience it would be just me and the postmaster: a kind fellow, who seems to understand the weirdness of folks who work at home.

So I jammed a hat over my unwashed hair, jumped in the car, and went.

Well, the place was packed. At least, packed by the standards of our post office. Two other women, some kids, the postmaster, and me.

The other women were chatting to each other, so as unobtrusively and quickly as possible, I stepped to the window to buy my stamps. I'd tried putting on lipstick in the car, but the tube I keep there has broken.

I was writing my check when I felt someone easing up behind me. Peering over my shoulder. Getting a pretty good look at the return address on the mail I'd just laid up on the counter.

``Oh,'' she suddenly said. ``So that's who you are!''

It never fails. I'm standing around someplace, trying my best to be invisible because I haven't washed my hair in far too long, and the shirt I'm wearing bears clear evidence of yesterday's lunch, and my sweatpants are finally really, really comfortable because at last I've got them bagging out in all the right places, and I've just realized that I forgot to brush my teeth ... when someone recognizes my name.

``Are you the one who writes that stuff in the newspaper?''

How many other Monty Leitches do you think there could be in the world? I've never actually said it.

``Well, if it isn't the obsessive lawn-mower!''

Or, ``Where have I seen that name before?''

Once when I got a speeding ticket, it ran in Police Reports. You could have seen it there.

``And how's the Man of the House?''

A friend once asked me if I'd rather be rich or famous. She'd decided, after a brief brush with fame, that riches were preferable.

Of course, it's not fame, exactly - having your name recognized by about 1 percent of the people who live within, say, 50 miles. But it's what I've got. And I'm most assuredly not getting rich.

``How's your bursitis?'' folks ask sympathetically. ``How's your cat?''

``I keep up with you in the paper!''

Well, I do put it all right out there for you to read, don't I?

David Huddle says, ``If you've read two or three of my books, the odds are that you know me better than you know your next-door neighbor. ... I don't mean know literally, because even the most autobiographical of my work is filled with ... much made-up material. ... But you'll know me - there isn't any other way to put this - spiritually: You'll know what is at the center of my personality; you'll know what I think about, what troubles me, what comforts me, what I'm afraid of, what I admire, what I care about, what I hate, what I notice about people, and so on.''

In the pages he's written, Huddle says, he has ``revealed everything there is to reveal'' about himself.

He's right.

I guess, therefore, that if you've read two or three of these columns, then it doesn't matter if you catch me out with dirty hair and halitosis. Likely, you'd already guessed I'd be that way.

Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.

by CNB