martha clarkson
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Pow!! Biff!! Klonk!!

6/12/2017

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"Let that be a lesson. In the future, be more careful from whom you accept free lemonade."

One of the many famous Adam West quotes. As Batman, of course. On the TV show. Adam West 1929-2017.

My godfather, Fitz, managed the Windjammer Hotel at Gearhart, Oregon, in the 1960s. My dad had the advertising account and helped him get the job. The Windjammer, sadly gone from this location, had been The Sands of Gearhart at one time, but a new owner had come in and refreshed it all. There was a slightly curved main building, simple in its design, the lobby centered. A separate box of a building to the left for the restaurant, fine dining but no chicken (the owner didn't like chicken), and a separate glass building below the rooms, for the big swimming pool, and a mezzanine with a fireplace above, for the bored adults. The lobby was big with gold carpet, scattered with chairs, my mother in one pretending to read, in the brochure my dad made. Quite an elaborate brochure, us free family models posing. My favorite part was the defunct coffee shop, hidden across from the lobby, with its sunken bar, so the server would be level with the counter-sitters. All the dishes were still there and I got to play restaurant every time, serving my dad empty cups and cups of coffee. 

Adam West was a frequent visitor to the Windjammer and he and Fitz became friends. We never seemed to time our visits when he was there, but I was always asking. My dad and I watched the TV show together all the time. Though my dad wasn't much on silly shows, certainly not on super-hero series, he liked seeing the old actors like Cesar Romero and Vincent Price playing the villains, and he liked the canted camera angles and "POW!" cartoon words coming at you.

On my seventh birthday there was a call for me in the kitchen of our Portland home. I took the harvest gold receiver from my mother and said "hi," uncertain, because I didn't get a lot of calls, and a voice said "Happy Birthday Martha. This is Batman." My stomach fell to the floor. I thought of the autographed Adam West head shot framed above my bed. Then I thought of the masked man in the TV show. And of Bruce Wayne and how I liked his voice as he issued trusted orders to Alfred and always attended his galas with a pretty woman on his arm. I didn't know what to say. But I will not forget that Batman called me. That Fitz must have been standing beside him, having dialed, with his usual infectious grin filled with love.
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Sunday's Child

6/12/2016

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Father’s day, June 19th, 2016, looming. Though it’s only a week away, it’s reared its head since January 20th, when my father died. Every year we met in Chehalis, halfway between Portland and Seattle. There was a Father’s Day years ago that for logistical reasons, neither of us could spend the whole weekend together – that is, me going to Portland, so we decided to meet and spend the day together at the Old Highway’s roadhouse inn, Mary McCrank’s. My father had discovered Mary’s in the war, travelling from his camp in Seattle to Portland when granted leave, on the only available road, Highway 99. Mary ran the kitchen in her old house and dished out the pan-fried chicken, a favorite dish of my dad’s, in the living and dining rooms. A measure of a good cook for my dad was one who (in that era, a woman) could crisp up perfect pan-fried chicken. We pursued pan-fried chicken at Nendel’s (Beaverton), The Gable (Corvallis), Rose’s and The Homestead (Seattle), West Linn Inn, Tad’s. But I’ve eaten the most pan-fried chicken at Mary McCrank’s, every Father’s Day for nineteen years.

Right on the old highway in south Chehalis, Mary’s house was set on a plush plot of grass with a small creek, a tiny bridge, benches, and oaks. Families took photographs in this setting after meals. Inside, the décor was “1940s frilly grandma” – lace tablecloths, antique knickknacks in every niche, colonial-scene wallpaper faded above pine wainscoting, the brick fireplace mantle lined with china cups and saucers. There was a bathtub in the women’s restroom, because yes, it really was her house.
The first two years we went, my father and mother were still married, and my roommate from college tagged along because her father had passed away. My mother would have something besides chicken, in her independent way, jealous of a cult food my dad and I both loved. The meal service was old-style – relish tray, homemade rolls and chutney, a salad or soup with the meal, also dessert included. We all asked for the creamed carrots, with their cloying sauce that leaked into the chicken, to be held. My dad always ordered a chocolate sundae, though it was not on the menu.
The crowd was dour small-town and every year we were the loudest table in the place, laughing at stories and my dad opening his presents. Always some old couples, where obviously the wife was taking the husband out for dinner, their grown children not around, to at least acknowledge his fatherhood. They ate in silence and the man often looked like coveralls were more his type of outfit. Families took the round tables, small children dressed for church and restless.
To extend the day after dinner, we took over a section of the backyard and set up a card table I brought. This was not the nice side part of the yard. This was a rotation of staff on breaks coming out to smoke, vent hoods snaking from the low, shingled backside of the house. Four folding chairs and a deck of cards. A cooler of beer and water for an hour or two of bridge, though we were mostly too full to imbibe. After the divorce, it was just Cathey, my dad, and me, and we played three-handed. Then my dad remarried and we initiated Mary Ellen into the scene. One year her son came up from California for the outing, so with five of us, we switched to dominoes. It was raining that year, and we sat under the potato-chip fiberglass patio cover with the inside diners looking on.
In 2010, we pulled up in the front (we never were more than ten minutes out of sync meeting) to find a huge expansion halfway done on the back and side of the house. That year it also rained, and the new owner let us to play cards within the fiberboard skeleton of the future.
The result of the construction was a large back room with plastic-wood floors that resembled the dining hall of a retirement home. Gone was the character and scale of the old Mary McCrank’s and whether you love lace or not, you still wanted that feeling. Lucky for us, the original front room was still in place with all the bric-a-brac, and we were always seated there. With the addition, they’d installed a bar and cocktails. Gin was often in short supply however, and it seemed to astonish the staff that all four of us might order martinis at once. While we were pleased to be in the original living room, we wondered about the business decision to expand a restaurant located in a tiny town on a forgotten highway. Three years later it was gone, the owners escaping to Utah after a suspicious fire.
Research had to be undertaken to save our Father’s Day, and I discovered a wonderful restaurant called Macinaw’s, in historic downtown Chehalis. Chef Laurel was not open on Sundays but agreed to. No fried chicken, but plenty of other good food in a town where choices are few. For the next three years our celebration was saved.
If Mary McCrank’s was still going, Cathey and I would meet again this year. We would drink beer and reminisce, eat chicken and ask for the carrots to be held. But Mary and her dreams are no longer. My father is gone. The day looms. I hope the dread will turn out to be nothing, because I’ve overthought the occasion. Not like my birthday when, waiting in line for coffee, I was completely caught off guard by the realization my father wouldn’t be calling me. Maybe Sunday I’ll fry a chicken, crispy on the outside, moist inside, see if I can measure up to those nineteen Sundays.
 

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Hi Dad!

1/25/2016

5 Comments

 
Chan Clarkson is remembered for his quick wit, love of good conversation, and optimism about life. Chan was born in Portland, attending Alameda and Grant, and later University of Oregon. He had a vibrant advertising career until retiring at 79. In addition to that, he was an armchair architect and historian. The cup was always half full with Chan, and he believed in the potential of people to achieve great things. His last twenty years were spent in a fun and loving marriage with Mary Ellen. Chan was a loyal friend, father, and husband, and will be missed by the vast number of people whose lives he touched. He passed away on January 20th at 94. I miss you, Dad.


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As Luck Would Have It

8/30/2015

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 I drove home from Portland on a Sunday, a dreaded activity given traffic these days, after spending a long weekend with my aging father. I stopped at Beesley’s for one of the made-to-order burgers, and killed time reading the bulletin board of crowding business cards. I found an old friend’s card there, a crazy coincidence since he runs a consulting business and there he was, crammed in with junk haulers and dog sitters. Easy to smile, I knew he wasn’t drumming up business, but loved Beesley’s burgers. I hadn’t talked to him in twelve years and now I had his email again.

South of Chehalis, there is a blind curve on I-5, in a section where the speed limit is seventy. On the last bite of my burger, I turned it to find brake lights ahead of me in the left lane. Unsure if I could stop in time, the brake-slamming included heading for the shoulder. My seventeen-year-old car stopped like a master, and I missed the bumper ahead, at the last second checking the rear view mirror, remembering the guy riding my butt for the last quarter mile, me not being able to get over to let him pass. I heard his brakes of the home-painted car squelching, and saw his rear end fishtail out to the center lane. He hit my backside, bumping me up in the shoulder a foot or two.

I wasn’t hurt, I wasn’t shook, more annoyed. But I wasn’t going to adopt that tone for whatever was next. I tossed the burger wrapper on the floor and went out to meet him and my new damage. A young kid in a baseball hat, with one red earring. “Are you okay?” was the first thing he said, not a bad sign. I nodded. He looked out to the horizon, when he said “no” to my question of having insurance. Of course he didn’t. He was quiet, polite, and dazed by what had happened. “I’m so glad my two-year-old wasn’t along,” he said as he continued to look beyond our incident with a dreamy gaze. Non-belligerently he added, “You can write down my license but I’m not giving you any other information.” Still looking to horizons he was, and I had to smile at the quiet defiance. “After all,” he said, motioning to his bumper, “there is no damage.”

“We’re not talking about your bumper,” I said, holding steady with a pleasant tone. Why do anything else, he may have an AK-40 in the backseat, where the kid usually sat. “We’re talking about mine,” I said, pointing to the gash, red from his paint.

He turned to look at me and seemed to focus. “Oh yeah.” Then out of the blue, “I have a job, it’s not like that.” I took a piece of paper and pen from my purse, and asked him name.

“My name is Bobbyjoe, one word,” he said. Of course it is, I thought. “I’m from Chehalis.”  Of course you are. I could picture Bobbyjoe’s life – the child from the high school sweetheart sucking down any disposable income, the low-life night job, the tiny house in need of paint. “Can you work with me on a payment plan?” he said.

We exchanged information and I drove off. I no more wanted to call the police than he wanted me to. I was just five miles from my Sunday I-5 secret turn off, that doesn’t make the trip faster, only prettier, avoiding all the freeway stopping in south and proper Tacoma, and keeping the car moving. I’d rather move at thirty miles an hour in the view of Mt. Rainier, than sit on I-5 looking at the bleak housing beyond JBLM’s security fencing.

I took the exit, and once on the country roads, felt the relief of being off I-5, the accident and my luck washing over me. I could be injured, dead, others could be hurt, cars could’ve been ruined. Bobbyjoe’s wife could be a widow with a two-year-old. I also considered the good chance all the information he gave me was fake. It was a risk I’d taken.

An hour later, as I was entering onto I-5 at Fife, having missed the backups, my phone rang. It was Bobbyjoe. He wanted to tell me that he worked on cars and would like to buy the new bumper and fix the car himself. He assumed I was already home, that I lived in a similar small town as he. I told him I didn’t like talking on the phone in the car when I was supposed to be watching the road, and I’d get back to him.

Of course he wasn’t going to drive to Kirkland with a new bumper and work on the car, where, in my driveway? I called him the next day and we negotiated a deal: he would pay the cost of a new bumper, which he’d already thoroughly researched, in payments, and I would take care of the rest. It was about a 1/3-2/3 split in his favor. I wanted him to regard a kindness being done for him, to not tailgate, to realize how lucky we both were and the drivers around us, and I told him so. He said he was aware of our good fortune, and that he didn’t get paid till the 20th. I knew I had no recourse, I might never see the one-third. “I want to do what’s right,” he said.

Two weeks later on the 20th, he texted me and said he had just gotten paid, and where should he send the first money order, even though I had written my address on a paper for him at the scene. I sent it again.

Though he says he mailed it, nothing has come in the mail yet. I will not go after him, I will not threaten him with calling the insurance company armed with his license plate number. There is no blood from this turnip. Only hope. I will look for the envelope in the mailbox, his handwritten scrawl maybe transposing numbers that caused a delay. I hope he hasn’t changed his mind about doing what’s right. I hope he never does.

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If the Shoe Fits

6/2/2014

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                                                    If the Shoe Fits


I drove to Eugene on a weekday morning for a writing award. Sort of. The award was more of a bridesmaid, rather than a bride, but that doesn’t mean it was even second place. Maybe it was more like a flower girl, or the person who mans the guest book. But it was important to me to travel the five hours for the hosted writing workshop, and attend the winners’ reading. Working full time is hard on writing, so any chance you get to pull away and immerse in the craft, you should take.

At home, I save some clothes, ones I think have the chance of being appreciated as “vintage” sometime in the future. A few pairs of shoes. Sometimes I write about them. A couple tops have been stashed so long, they’re in style again. Once, in the mid-90s, I splurged on a pair of red shoes I accidentally saw in the fancy shoe part of Nordstrom the day after I received a bonus check. The shoes were keepers for the vintage future, so when four years later styles had changed, I packed them among the mohair sweaters and miniskirts, where they stayed for at least a decade. I can’t be sure exactly how long, because a couple years ago I had a notion it might be time for the red shoes to be in style again. But when I looked, they were gone from the place I remembered putting them. I clean and re-organize often, but the red shoes had disappeared.

 

The trip to Eugene gave me a night in Portland in the way home, a chance to see the parents. Saturday morning I was in the car by nine to capture at least a decent half of my weekend when I got home to Seattle. I drove the surface streets of northeast Portland to I-5, and saw the Goodwill store my friend and I like, so I stopped.

When I’m in a Goodwill mood, there are a few sections I go to and skip the rest. Glasses, sweaters, coats – trolling for vintage coolness. This particular Goodwill is not a huge place and I know exactly where my aisles are. But without conscious thought, I went directly to the shoe section, which is arranged by color. The black shoe aisle was stroller-filled so I went to the next – lime green, white, and red in the center. Without any cohesive thought or focus, my eyes went right to a pair in the middle of the reds. I took the pair off the shelf, already sure they were my 6.5 size, because they were my red shoes of the 90s. I knew it as if I’d been given a map. The magnitude of coincidence hit me as I held them and my breathing faulted for a few seconds. Turning the pair over, I saw the plastic taps added to the outside of the heels, where I always had the cobbler set them for the way I wore heels down. I had been a venerate heel protector back in the day. I doubt anyone even remembers “taps.” Now we just replace the heels, at three times the cost.

 I can’t prove they are my shoes, of course. Or how they travelled to Portland. At the same time, I know they’re mine. Bought on a Goodwill whim stop on a short-notice trip, coming home.




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The Exchange

6/25/2013

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      It was the first night of eight days of tennis lessons. We had scheduled ourselves to play in our first ever tournament and were trying to get out every chance possible, despite June’s usual amount of rain. A parks and rec class could only help.
     My husband wanted to warm up, so we arrived a half hour early. The high school was old, and the parking lot was vast, with cracks in the concrete that weeds and grasses grew in. Even the courts had this. The young teacher was pulling back the tabs on new cans of balls, setting them free into the practice baskets. An elongated, low-slung black dog roamed the lot. You noticed strays now, with so much leashing in the  laws.
      We hit a few balls back and forth – mostly forth and off against the fence or into the net. We were not warmed up. We’d eaten too much dinner after work, and too fast. I picked up a ball on the side line at the fence. When I stood, a lady was near, asking me a question.
      “What?” I said. I was busy thinking about tennis and she hadn’t come right up to the fence anyway.
     “Did you drive here, or walk?” she said.
     A cynic’s mind rushed in to say “who wants to know?” But instead I told her we drove. It seemed so obvious, just our car and the teacher’s in the upper lot.
     She looked about seventy, overweight in odd places but not obese. But mostly what I saw was the scabs on that piece of skin under the nose, and her chin. Scabs in odd places. “Somehow I locked my keys in my car. I didn’t think you could do that anymore. I live about seven minutes away. I need a ride.”
      My selfish knee-jerk reaction was wishing her to disappear. I was here to play tennis. I was thinking of the word nuisance. But she needed a ride. Then I thought of Jim, who’d been insistent on coming early, adamant about practice, and not keen on strangers. I turned to him. “She needs a ride.” As he neared the fence, she repeated what happened. She wasn’t overly ingratiating, but I guess we weren’t either. 
      “Can you wait an hour?” he said. “We have a lesson.”
      She nodded and said sure. You could tell she’d wait how ever long it took, she needed a ride.
     We still had twenty minutes till class started. “I’ll take her,” I said. I put my racquet away and grabbed my jacket. “You can stay here,” I said to Jim. Then I realized he wouldn’t have anyone to practice with. As I walked to the car, he trailed me. Then I remembered I didn’t bring my license. I could see how this was going to go over; no practice, now he had to drive her, because I’d committed us.
     We got in the car and she got in the back, telling us some vague directions as she did, not closing the door and the stray dog had come over to make friends with her and wanted in. I reached back as if to swat the dog out of the way. “No,” I said to it.
     She shut the door and the dog jumped around timidly outside the car as we started to pull out. “It’s not your dog, is it?” I said.
     “Well, yes,” she said. “I suppose she might try to follow the car.”
     “Let her in,” Jim said.
     We pulled out and the woman mumbled instructions for turning. Then she said, “I’m Nancy Gassner, I guess I should have said that in the first place. And this is Maggie.” We’re always so good about introductions, why hadn’t we been this time?
     We said our names – first only – and listened to more directions. Her voice was modulated and somewhat sad. Sad that a newish car – which we never really saw – would let her down and swallow her keys. And maybe sad about something else, like where she got the scabs.
     Jim and I were sitting stiffly, not like we usually sit in our own, familiar car. I thought about her having a gun tucked under her shirt, about a scam worked out with a boyfriend to get us to the house, about all the paranoid things that have nothing to do with helping a human who needs a hand. Maggie sat sweetly beside her owner. Nancy asked about our tennis lesson in her hesitant way. But we’d done nothing to make her feel welcome. Our personalities had left us, but not for good reason.
        When we got to her street, she told us we could drop her off mid-block and they would walk the rest of the way. So we did. We hardly glanced at her or acknowledged her thank you, which was not profuse. Is that what we wanted, her to be warm and friendly and talk of grandchildren and elaborate on our good deed?
            On the ride back to the school, we told each other we’d been good Samaritans, but it didn’t feel that true. We pondered why she didn’t want us to take her the last stretch to her house, if it was purely to save us those few seconds of time, or because there was someone angry at home, or the home was unsightly. We’d done nothing to connect with her.
     Back at the courts, a lone man was using the school wall for a backboard while he waited for class to start. We still had ten minutes to practice.             
      The class was hard, in a good way, and we lost our thoughts over to serves and baselines. We bonded with the strangers in the class, laughed, and noted each other’s good shots out loud. Dark clouds had gathered by the time class ended, but we had escaped any rain. We gulped our brought water as we walked back to the car and said “see you tomorrow” to our new friends. We threw our equipment and unnecessary jackets into the trunk with abandon.
        On the hood of our car was a single lily. White. The flower was near perfect, and set diagonally across the left side of the hood. The stem was unmarred, sturdy and green. Sturdy, that’s how I’d describe Nancy. The flower was a haunting symbol, and if she was in trouble, if those scabs were something we should’ve asked about, I’d never forgive myself.

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A Pair of Happies

5/10/2013

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     I bought the cheap Target dress, then realized I hadn’t checked the fit enough in the cramped red dressing room at the new location on Figueroa. Business trips can make you rush everything, so I took it to a tailor back home.
     I’d recently discovered the alterations hole behind the Taco del Mar, after spending too much paying Nordstrom to do the few I needed. No way was I turning loose their Asian fleet on my Target purchase. And even though it’s just a cheap dress probably
made in China by children (of which I don’t approve, of course), I liked it enough to put a few extra bucks into it so the bodice fit right.
      The tailor was Russian – elf-like height, bald, with a white beard, some missing teeth on the lower, always in a pressed shirt. His shop featured more than alterations, it included the sale of men’s consignment – racks of sport coats surrounded the three-way mirror and shoes were lined up neatly on shelves below. He worked behind a louvered swing door, like a saloon. I’d brought him a more expensive dress to alter last month and I’d liked the results.
     This alteration gave him more pause, though it was essentially the same alteration, my late dawning of how short-waisted I am and frequently in need of a hike on the shoulders. He hemmed and hawed a bit, I offered to forget it, given its cost, the Mossimo tag glaring out from the neckline. It wasn’t like I couldn’t wear it, just me noticing. Then he said “I’ll figure something out.” He waved his hand in the air, pulled out an unbent Calvin Klein tag off some other garment, and scribbled my phone number. A Russian calendar was on the counter and he gestured to it, asking when I wanted the dress. I told him to pick the day – the weatherwouldn’t be warm enough to wear it for weeks. “Ookay zen, May 8th,” he said. Then he clucked, tapping the date box with his pen, “My birthday,” and I saw my first glimpse of an eye-twinkle.
      Wednesday rolled around, of course, like the future does, and I made sure I had time in my work schedule to pick the dress up. Before that, I went to the grocery store and bought a tiny green striped pot pre-planted with a bright orange flower. I had no idea if it would grow over time, but it was festive. 
      In the shop, the Russian was on my side of the counter, straightening some clothes. I was glad to not hand him his birthday gesture across a counter. It seemed less of a
transaction not to. “Happy birthday,” I said, fleetingly wondering if he’d made up his own holiday, because I was just a stranger after all. I held out the flower pot.
        His normal stoic Russian-ism drained from his face and his eyes became circles of disbelief. What does that exactly look like? I don’t know if I can describe it more concretely and though I’ve seen it in movies and read it in books, I’d never witnessed it
overtake someone’s face so completely. You’ll know it someday when you see it. He smiled like he hadn’t yet in my presence, and stammered nonsense. I think “oh,” “I can’t believe it,” and “oh” a few more times were in there. He went around the counter, shaking his head. “Not in twenty years, has someone…” Then chuckled, adding, “Of course no one has known.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the gift. I had the cash with me to pay the amount he’d quoted. In his fluster, he didn’t know which dress it was, and there was no reason he should be memorizing my clothes and me. I pointed out the dress, and wished him well on his important day, leaving him the flower. I was flooded with joy.
      This is not to toot my own horn about how thoughtful I am. It was, in fact, a very selfish gesture. I felt so good afterward. Joyous acts can last for hours and while I didn’t do a dance all afternoon, somewhere in my day the pleasure of our transaction was with me. Not just one person was pleased in a day, but two. Be selfish. A nice gesture, whether a thing or an act, is happy impact. You're both the beneficiary.

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Action Happiness

2/26/2013

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http://www.actionforhappiness.org/      just do it
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(Christmas) Tree of Life

12/7/2012

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Growing up we had one pink light bulb on one string out of the ten we
put on the tree. Every year we watched with anticipation as the string
containing the pink bulb was tested before placed it on the waiting branches.
We always made sure it was findable in the front. No one knew where it came from, and there was no replacement lying in wait. It lasted 22 years. 
 
Christmas trees are erected and lit in the houses you’re invited to over the
holidays. Doug Firs, Scotch Pines, Nobles, sometimes aluminum trees.
Often the front doors welcome you with swags or wreaths. A wreath might have a wired-in sprig of holly, the swag a velvet bow, but oh those trees, nothing can match the ornamentation of family culture and history. The history may be this year’s trip to Michael’s craft store, or it may be the fourth generation string of half-broken beads. Either way, it’s all sacred. 
 
Next hot-toddy party you’re invited to, next potato pie supper, next egg nog slog, take a look at the tree and its ornaments. Ask about one that grabs your curiosity. After all, someone took a great deal of time to pick the tree, unbox the ornament
boxes buried under the old stair, and place their favorites on the tree just so. 

Our tree this year has a brown teapot from 1950, a German troll with a pierced ear,
and a contemporary orange spiral we call The Sperm.  
Every ornament has a story, untold unless asked.

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Stop and Smell the Lemonade

8/3/2012

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Always buy lemonade from the kid on the corner. Always. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. Think about the kid who has the brilliant idea to set up a stand. First she's (or he, but for ease, just using one) dragged a card table out of some dusty basement recess, hoping all four legs work. Or moved the plastic patio table, dragging a line in the lawn. Then she's made a sign, perhaps without the proper equipment like white chipboard and a fat-nibbed poster marker, more likely with skinny pens and the back of an Amazon box. She's done her best to make it readable.  It's true you're unlikely to get homemade lemonade anymore (and more power to you if you do - there's nothing like it) but some kind of drink has got to be made. She's probably toiling from a stepstool at the kitchen counter, with a long spoon, attempting to dissolve Country Time powder. Then there's glasses to be rounded up, and a muffin tin full of change, and the hard thinking that goes into price setting. But most of all, she's willing to sit on an exposed corner, two table legs hovering precariously on the curb edge, and watch car after car drive by, without so much as a wave. Stop. Get out. Ask her what's to drink, even if you can read that cardboard sign made with the too-thin pen. Overpay, but not too much, and surprise her by saying "keep the change." If you don't want the drink that's likely so sweet it can cause a diabetic coma, pour it out at the next stop. That's not the point.

Stop for the little girl or boy selling lemonade. Always. How long has it been since you put yourself out there to face the busy, drive-by world?
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