Three days at the Mall

I'm spending the majority of the next three days with my best girlfriend. My best girlfriend is 85 years old and funny as all get out. She's also very talented. Mother and I have spent hundreds of hours together over the past 12 years sitting behind a table, people watching and talking to the people. On occasion, we even make some money.

Our gig includes her cards and paintings and my books. For the past thirty-plus years, Mother has assembled a collection of timeless greeting cards for all occasions. The common denominators in them all are her personal art style and a touch of the country. Whether the scenes are barns, horses or glimpses of outdoor beauty around this area, the cards are always beautiful.

To create these works of art, Mother usually started with pen or pencil and sketched the scene. Then, she added water color. Several scenes of barns or other buildings are painted to represent different seasons of the year----thus, same structure different season. She used to add her water color touch one card at a time, but with the advance of technology, my sister Barbara has them all scanned to her computer. Mother and Barbara purchased a high end printer last year, so the final products are stunningly beautiful.

And, if that is not enough, Mother knows how to use those fancy gold and silver pens to add a Christmas touch to many of her cards. She sells the cards which have no verses, and she sells framed and matted enlarged paintings from her collection.

People have come year after year to add to their collection of her work. Some never use the cards; instead, they frame them and hang them in their houses. People are always amazed at how reasonably they are priced. Mother's philosophy, however, is that if lots of people can afford them, then they'll be in lots of houses, and she'll always have a market. I tend to agree with her.

When we go to these craft sales, we derive far more than profits from the experience. We get plenty of time to visit, plenty of time to gripe if business isn't good and plenty of time to watch all the people and their different techniques of pretending they really don't see us. We're hardly the hard-sell type folks, but we've seen "the look" over the years when people act as if we're might get up, trip them and strong arm them into buying our product.

Those people tend to look straight ahead and walk by quickly as if they're on a mission. Well, a lot of them are, come to think of it. I think I wrote about this last year when I mentioned that we're situated on the direct route to the Liquor Store. I can understand why those folks wouldn't be interested in Mother's art or my books. They've got more important things on their mind.

In spite of the people who avoid eye contact, we don't get ignored all the time; in fact, the Mall craft sale usually gives us an opportunity to see friends we haven't seen since the last time we sat at the Christmas Craft Sale. Lots of talking, lots of catching up and an occasional sale. We also appreciate meeting all the new folks in town.

Each year, as my mother gets another year older, I cherish the Mall Christmas Craft Sale all the more. Mother can't hear as well as she might have a year or so ago, and there will be plenty of times that I tell folks, "Talk in her left ear." Nonetheless, she lives for these days when she gets to show off her work to people who admire her talents and tell her their stories.

Lots of times I might even have to fill her in on parts of the conversation that she has missed, but she'll enjoy whatever she does hear whether it's at the time or after the fact. She's truly a social being and, like anyone, she doesn't mind making little money. The true reward for her, however, is staying connected with the outside world, and that's the best therapy a senior citizen could ever hope for.

See you at the Mall.