Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, July 7, 1994 TAG: 9407080026
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Beth Macy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Part hairdresser and part psychologist, she is West Salem's version of Dear Abby - kind of a cross between Miss Manners and Naomi Judd, with a little bit of Aretha Franklin thrown in.
So none of her beauty-shop clientele was surprised to read the following announcement in this newspaper's Sunday Celebrations section, printed May 15:
Ms. Dorita Dowdy of Salem is absolutely thrilled to announce that her daughter, Katrina Jeannean Dowdy, is engaged to a really great guy named Windell Lewis Brodrecht. After all the jerks she has dated, she's really found a jewel!
Divorced for the past 14 years, Dorita is no fool when it comes to identifying jerks: ``They're basically cheatin', lyin', or they have money problems.''
Problem is, too many women arrive at this revelation by trial and error. ``I married the only guy my mother said to break up with,'' the Christiansburg native says. ``I think most moms can tell; they've got that intuition.''
Dowdy had an inkling a few years back, even when Katrina dated a guy with whom she'd never argued. ``One evening after a cookout they'd been to, he told her he thought my life was slipping me by because I was divorced and not dating anyone.''
Katrina - being, well, her mother's daughter - responded to her beau by telling it like it was: ``She said, `Mom doesn't date because she thinks most men are jerks.'''
``YOU don't think that do you?'' the guy asked.
``Well, yes,'' Katrina responded.
And she never heard from the guy again.
The fallout from the engagement ad - which didn't include where the couple attended school, nor where they work (though ``they both have excellent jobs,'' Dorita enthuses) - ranged from fits of laughter to fits of conniption.
``One particular jerk merely proved my point a couple weeks ago,'' Dorita explains.
Katrina's car broke down in the middle of busy U.S. 460 near the service station where one of her ex-boyfriends works. The ex walked out to help Katrina, but stopped when he saw who it was.
``Please help me,'' she pleaded.
``NO,'' he said, turning away.
Another ex - who was so bad her mom almost listed his name in the announcement, Katrina says - sent Dorita this message: ``Do I take out a full-page ad to reply?''
And a columnist for The Sunday Telegram in Gloucester, Mass., who somehow found the Celebrations clipping, wrote an entire ode to the old days of free, formatted wedding announcements, recalling how his Aunt Clara showed hers off for years - especially the typo that described her as a ``bird'' instead of a bride.
Dorita Dowdy is placing a lot of trust in Windell Brodrecht, her future son-in-law, who really does sound like a jewel. He helps Dorita lift her invalid 83-year-old father, whom she cares for in her home. He buys her photographs of favorite old movie stars - Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart.
And best yet, her daughter adds, ``he can dance.''
``My dad's been in the hospital the last three days, and Windell's been there every day,'' Dorita says. ``He even brought him flowers. He's sweet and considerate - not just to Katrina, but he's embraced her whole family.''
Katrina, who concedes that her entire extended family has lousy luck with men, says she, too, had given up on dating before meeting Windell - at a bar.
``For the first four months, I thought he was too good to be true,'' she says. ``I kept waiting for the cops to come up and arrest him, or tell me he was on parole.''
Beth Macy, a features department staff writer, also met her husband at a bar - after a long spell of dating jerks. Her column runs Thursdays.
by CNB