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From AA-S Feature - December 16, 2005:
— Patrick Beach

Around 3 on a Christmas morning seven years ago, a man and a woman on the verge of couplehood are walking on West 37th Street, making the nightly rounds, switching off the famed holiday lights for the night. It's the brightest street in Austin, a torrent of color and creative energy that draws tourists every year by the tens of thousands. The man is Jamie Lipman, the mastermind of the lights. The woman is Sharon Smith, a friend of a friend. Jamie turns off the lights on each house in succession, and the darkness is relaxing. Under a streetlight softened by haze, they flow together. They kiss.

For hours, they kiss.

It's Christmas. It's good.

Sharon walks home, and as Jamie's doing the same he meets the Christmas Potato Lady, whom we shall call Madame X (not her real name), toting her Christmas Potatoes, wrapped in festive colored Saran Wrap, one for each house on the street. This is like encountering a mythical creature. The existence and identity of this person has been one of the street's enduring mysteries for years — and now Madame X is busted. Jamie and Madame X chat, and Jamie goes home to ponder Madame X as the Christmas Potato Lady. He also ponders Sharon, whom he will marry in 43 days.

He doesn't tell Sharon what happened until a clear afternoon between Christmas and New Year's 1998. It just comes out in casual front-porch reminiscence: "I never told you Madame X is the Christmas Potato Lady?"

"Madame X is the Christmas Potato Lady?" Sharon is surprised Jamie knows, that he's known for years.

But it's what they don't say that's telling. Neither mentions that it's, oh, just a little bit strange, the fact that some mysterious dadaist in the 'hood takes it upon herself to make annual spud deliveries.

Because on West 37th Street, this is normal.

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