My regular person wasn’t around, which meant I needed to find someone else who was. 
 
Yup, I was looking for an I-like-gardening type who was willing to pull weeds ($12 an hour, cash), and who also had the muscle—helming a wheelbarrow with shovel—to spread lots of mulch around my large corner lot.  
 
The latter area is a gently sloping hill, and is mostly filled in—lots of thickly growing ice plant (I called them freeway flowers as a little girl)—with a smattering of pink geraniums, wild roses and jasmine.  
 
I can use this kind of labor every three months or so, and for a long time, the woman who did it all was amazing.  She showed up on time; followed directions exactly, and always had a smile for me.   
 
The down side is that she’s what we once called a hobo.
 
By choice, she has no car, no phone and no watch. Once, after asking if I had an extra can opener (I did), she plopped down in my dirt driveway and ate lunch—peachy-hued salmon out of a tin can.  The only way I can contact her is via two cell numbers; one belongs to a friend, who seems to roam as much as she does, and the other is the number for her grown daughter, a full-time student whose life is way more mainstream.   
 
The daughter always tells me that she’ll pass on my request as soon as she hears from her mom.  We think she’s busy picking avocados up and down our California coast right now, but we aren’t sure.
 
This led me back to square one, but I thought I lucked out when a neighbor told me about someone she had used. 
 
I called him and we had a good conversation.  A few more texts and a few days later, he showed up and we met in person.  As it turned out, he had another landscaping job that day—probably one that entailed more money—so, he introduced me to a buddy who had come with him, and then left.  That man did a great job. 
 
But I will never ever call the first man again.
 
That’s because he crossed a line, big-time, within 30 seconds after greeting me.
 
We shook hands first. 
 
Then he said, “Okay, honey.  I’m here, so just show me what you want, honey.”  He repeated this endearment at least two more times in the same number of minutes.  Not only did him addressing me this way feel unsettling, it also felt demeaning, creepy and sexist. 
 
I’d like to tell you that I immediately stood up to him.  I’d also like to tell you that I did so by locking my pair of steely eyes on him, and in no uncertain terms, ordering him to cut it out.
 
But I can’t tell you either of these things because I didn’t do either of them.
 
However, after giving him instructions of what needed to be done—but with my back turned away—I did say, “Don’t call me that.”
 
“Oh, are you okay?” he replied, starting to follow closely behind me. “Is everything all right?”
 
I got to my front door, still unable to face him, and mumbled, “Yeah, it’s fine.  I just don’t like to be called that.”
 
For someone who considers herself to be a very good journalist who has rarely been afraid to ask questions, as well as
a feminist who minored in women’s studies in college, I’ll admit this:  it wasn’t fine at all.  Moreover, I’m ashamed of
my behavior. 
 
While I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I also know that I’m from an old-timey generation that doesn’t much believe in women making a lot of noise, much less a lot of fuss, when men say things that make us feel uncomfortable.   
 
In fact—and I’m embarrassed to admit this now—when I was a young teenager, I was flattered when a man whistled
​at me.
 
Then, why was my gut screaming that I needed a steam cleaning after he used this endearment over and over?  Had I been too sensitive about it all?  Maybe I should have acted like a duck, and let his name for me roll off my back like water?
 
I wasn’t sure.
 
So, hoping for feedback, I went on Facebook and posted an abbreviated version of what had transpired.  I then asked if it was okay for this near stranger, one whom I had hired to work for me, to address me the way he had.
 
I received more than a dozen comments, nearly all of them from women, and I’m happy to report that most everyone felt like me.
 
Comments ranged from “Not cool at all!” and “Demeaning and sexist… educate him,” to “One of my pet peeves!  I’m not your honey!!!!” and “Definitely not okay.”  Another female friend jokingly wrote that I could have defused the situation by calling the man “dollface” after the man called me what he had.  (The Hubster’s response to this: “Well, that could have been a powder keg.”  On this, I agree.)
 
Three men responded as well.
 
One, a fellow Clown College alum who is still actively clowning around, seemed to think the gardener in question deserved some wiggle room. Different cultures, he wrote, have different ways of seeing things.  “I deal with this all of the time when performing for different nationalities,” he wrote. 
 
Another man, one I had worked with on a long-running television show, had so much to say that he commented several times.  First, he wrote, “Great idea to spend your entire day correcting every dude, honey, man, sweetie, buddy and bro.”  (I’m pretty sure he was being sarcastic.)  He then went on to say that over the years, he has lost count of the number of women who have called him honey, “And it’s not a big deal.  They are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met.” 
 
The last man, a friend I’d met on another TV show, said the entire scenario was a tough call all around.  He explained that in Texas and parts of the South, “It’s an endearing term, not meant as demeaning or harassment.  But I guess in California, it’s no, huh?”
 
The answer to that question is a resounding yes. 
 
In fact, here’s a simple rule to follow if you’re on the West Coast and meeting a woman for the first time.  And nope, it doesn’t matter how young or old said female is; what she looks like, or even what the circumstances are.
 
Address her by her name.
 
They call me Hilary.
 
What do you think?  Was it okay for a semi-stranger to keeping calling me “honey?”  I look forward to your comments!

​I never met him.  
 
I also never had the chance to call or text him, and come to think of it, I also didn’t know anyone who was friends
with him.
 
As a matter of fact, like pretty much everyone else who assumed he’d always be here for us, I didn’t even
know his name. 
 
That was how he wanted it.
 
Yet for me and tens of thousands of other folks around here, his impact was immense.  In fact, in just a few short years, he became a social media phenomenon: out of our San Luis Obispo County coastal community here in California, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco and totaling about 250,000 people, he had close to 55,000 Facebook Friends.
 
For us, he was known only as the SLOStringer. 
 
(In journalism parlance, a stringer is an old-timey word for a freelance writer or photographer who contributes reports and photos to news organizations on a regular basis.)
 
Using this pseudonym, and not unlike today’s tornado chasers of the Midwest, he traveled our entire County and sometimes headed to adjacent ones—well over 3,000 square miles—always on his own dime, informing the public of car accidents, fires and other disasters.  Indeed, he was often the first (sometimes, only) reporter on a breaking story, but made a point to never get in the way of first responders.  For this, he earned a great deal of respect from that side of the aisle as well.
 
And something else: almost always, his stories were accompanied by extraordinary videos and photos that were so good, they would have been right at home in the pages of National Geographic magazine. 
 
It was a need that needed filling, because while this is a wondrous place to live, it is also not a place where there
are 24/7 news and traffic reports. 
 
He informed me twice in this way. 
 
A few years back, he responded to a Facebook message about a child care center surrounded by a SWAT team,
which was also on a major street that is part of my husband’s drive home.  The event wasn’t covered by any news outlet, but he knew all about it, writing me back that a homeless man had wandered inside the center, but that all had
ended peacefully. 
 
The other incident was a gnarly traffic accident about a mile or so from my house a few weeks back.  There were lots of sirens; bright lights, and emergency vehicles, but since the incident happened at around nine p.m., I couldn’t find any news reports.  But once again via Facebook, he got back to me the next morning, giving me details and assuring me that although it had been a head-on collision, there were no serious injuries.  
 
Then, in a curious twist of karma, his own life ended a couple of days later, in a fiery nighttime crash.

On a cold rainy highway on Tuesday, March 21, at around four a.m., he was on his way to cover a house fire about 20 minutes away.  For still-unknown reasons, his 2009 Chevy Tahoe veered off to the right shoulder of the road, then careened down a grassy embankment toward a tree.  The car then rolled over, its top crashing into the tree.  Landing hard on its tires, the vehicle immediately caught fire. 
 
The SLOStringer was pronounced dead on the scene.
 
The first article on the crash, which I read with bated breath a few hours later, simply reported the accident, with a photo of the mangled car.  It’s a busy highway, and one that The Teenage Daughter drives on a few days a week, so I did a mighty exhale when I saw that the vehicle was not hers. The next report, only moments later, stated that the car and the license number matched those belonging to the SLOStringer.  The third article, reported soon after, affirmed that the SLOStringer was the lone fatality.
 
Out loud, sitting at my laptop, I said, “Oh, NOOOO!”   
 
It was only then that I learned his name.  
 
He was Matthew Frank, 30 years old and a home grown boy, a graduate of the 2005 class of San Luis Obispo High School. At the time of his death, he was taking business classes at Cuesta College, the awesome community college that my daughter also attends. To close friends, he was a quiet young man who loved tinkering with motorcycles; in fact, it turns out that he owned a bike repair shop right in San Luis Obispo.    
 
Those who just knew Frank by his public persona also now discovered that he was the person who painted over some nasty graffiti on a railroad bridge two years ago. 
 
Because the bridge is owned by Union Pacific, the city didn’t have the authority to cover the four-letter word that faced traffic.  So, Frank simply got some gray paint and took matters into his own hands.  And since he was allowed access, his fans now learned that he had also helped feed and comfort the pets of many families who had been forced to evacuate their homes during the Chimney Fire, a horrific inferno that lasted for weeks last summer.
 
There were other acts of kindness toward the firefighters he loved.
 
One fire chief recalled his crews fighting a nighttime blaze for hours.  Everyone, said this chief, was completely spent when they returned to their station.  As they were wearily rolling hoses and getting ready for the next call, Frank showed up with breakfast burritos.       
 
Like my baby girl is to me, Matthew Frank was also an only child. 
 
As most Girl Clown Dancing readers know, I lost her first father to suicide.  I might have taken my own life soon after if I hadn’t had a small child who needed me.  But if my daughter were to pass before me, it would absolutely bring me to my knees.  I’d get up, but it would take a good long while.  I also know, with absolute certainty, that the hole in my heart would be utterly irreparable.  
 
Yet, as Matthew Frank’s mother Jacquelyn said, “He loved the community service he did, and he died doing what
​he loved.”
 
This affection was returned in spades at Frank’s memorial, attended by hundreds of people and dozens of fire engines and tow trucks parked outside the venue.  The church service also included a firefighters’  “last alarm” bell-ringing ceremony, and a flyover by the County Sheriff’s Aero Squadron—a group that Frank hoped to join one day.
 
Perhaps one firefighter said it best.  
 
“I’m a little nervous now,” he said, “because God has got one hell of a cameraman.”
 
Sleep well, Matthew Frank.