[Published: August 16, 2021]

Parking customers aren’t usually our biggest fans, so it was a pleasant surprise to receive this positive commute story about a life-changing outcome for one of our parking customers. We are sharing Mark Lawrence’s commute “love story,” and hope you find it as charming as we did. Mark is emeritus staff and chief engineer at KZSU Radio 90.1.

“In August of 1988 I was working as a systems programmer for University IT with an office located in Polya Hall on west campus. I’d been at Stanford for 16 years, and had been divorced for four years. One morning I ran errands on the way to work, and arrived on campus around 10:30 a.m.

Parking on the west side of campus, usually easy in those pre-SEQ (Science and Engineering Quad) days, was in short supply due to the construction on Parking Structure 2. Even with an “A” permit, there were no spaces available, so I parked my ’69 VW van at a two-hour meter in the little lot on Via Ortega. I proceeded to dump a pocketful of quarters into the meter, thinking I could find a permit space later when others went to lunch. Back then, there were of course no credit card options and one could park for two hours with spare change.

As I finished feeding my meter, I noticed a lovely lady standing at a meter a few spaces over. She smiled sweetly and asked politely if she could borrow a nickel. (She had given all her change to her son that day for lunch money.) She was Karen Campbell, a compensation analyst in University HR, with seventeen years at Stanford, and had been divorced for about two weeks.   

By the time I gave Karen the nickel, I’d already fallen in love with her smile. Quickly realizing this was my only chance to connect, I asked if I might accompany her as she ran an errand at Forsythe Hall. Along the way, I invited Karen to lunch. She said yes. Our date was the following week. We got married in 1988 and 33 years later, we’re still together!

And it’s all because I couldn’t find a parking space.

— Mark Lawrence