Mary Z. Gray

This is my friend Mary Z. Gray on a video from the Washington Post site. My dad worked with Mary on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation back in the 60s and 70s. In 1982, after Mary had become a crack freelancer of humor and travel pieces, she sold a story to the Washington Post Style section and sent along a drawing I did with it. The Post published the story, which wasn't unusual, they'd run Mary's stuff for some time, but they ran the drawing too, thus inadvertently launching my dubious career.


In the video Mary, who's one of the funniest raconteurs I know, talks quite movingly about growing up on Capitol Hill and living above her father's funeral parlor. I'd heard her talk about this before, but never known the address of her old residence. Reading the interview in today's Post Metro section. I turned to B8 at the jump and there was a photo of the house's current incarnation. It's now the Haskell Center, part of the Folger Shakespeare Library where my wife works as a docent.

The full interview with Mary is here