Coretta Scott King at the High Museum

This is Rodin's statue THE SHADE.  It was donated to the High Museum by the French government in memory of the 122 Atlanta Art Patrons and plane crew killed on Air France Flight 007 that crashed when it attempted to leave Paris's airport.

When I took this picture a couple years ago it was in front of the High Museum near the sidewalk on Peachtree Street.  I think it is still there.

It was inside the building, outside the concert auditorium.  Once about 1973, when it was inside we went to a concert.  Don Lash, a visiting Navy friend was with us. We were early of course, and I had a chance to study the statue  I noticed moment in peripheral   vision, fairly close.  I turned to look and was awed that was Coretta Scott King.. 

I couldn't keep my eyes off her.  We stood there looking.  She at the statue and I at her.  She was so close I could have shake her hand; even goose her. She was a very graceful lady.  I didn't speak to her because I didn't know what to say... I knew from experience what I would have said would sound too eager to impress her and come out awkward  or say something wrongly put.

When she gracefully glided away I kicked myself for not speaking.

About a fifteen years later I got to know her niece Debbie, (Coretta's brother's daughter) a co-worker at the Post Office.  It wasn't hard to talk to her at all, she was very much down to earth and witty.

Happy Martin Luther King Day!