Bumping shoulders, dodging small running children, tripping over curbs, grabbing Dorothy Susanne’s hand, tugging the wagon carrying Jay-Jay and Brad a.k.a. the twins.
Hot baked bread from Wisniewski”s Bakery smelling of butter, sesame, garlic, onions; smell of fresh Indiana melons (cantaloupe) sliced for sampling…melon which came in the back of a pick-up truck…not in a semi-trailer….melon picked in the dark…just this morning.
Huge stuffed Raggedy Anne and Andy like dolls with brown faces and tightly kinked hair and dressed in colorful kinte clothes. The little old lady who got even with me because I told her that her dolls didn’t look like my kids. Now the dolls do look like my kids. She laughs…she knows I’ll buy.
Vendors and customers in constant communication…hearing bits of conversation…how many…how much…fresh fruit for sale….will you negotiate?……idling diesel engines of the watermelon trucks from south Georgia….Can the twins have some candy?….Will they ever just be Brad and Jay-Jay instead of the twins?…Think I’ll scream if one more person tells me my identical sons are cute…I think I’ll scream.
Artists market….sculptures for sale…..African masks….busts of small children…flat framed carvings…..woven mats of many colors….Running into Marvin Vines...my artist friend…..he sketches the kids and me…talking about how I should get LeMaxie Glover to sculpt the children’s heads…wishing later that I had because too soon LeMaxie is dead and we have lost another important black voice…
The quilt lady asking about Herma Mack Henry….who used to be my landlady but stayed around to become my elder friend. She’s off to Columbus to visit her little sister and will be home next week. I’ll be back to Market with her…and she’ll leave with bargains…she always does.
Seeing my used to be landlady for the garden site in Spencer Sharples Will I be needing the site in the spring…if so her husband will plow it and fertilize it for me….and oh yes, next summer the rent will be $30.00…Dorothy Susanne tugging my arm…Mommy, will that bad old goose be gone….the one that flogged my baby’s legs….before our Dobie jumped out the van window and chased him off?!..No, the farm lady tells her the goose is gone..he’s in the freezer now waiting for his starring role at Christmas dinner!
Through with the market…putting the kids in my orange Volkswagen van…struggling to put the wooden Radial Flyer through the sliding door…its nearly 8 a.m…..can I get the kids to go back to sleep? Don’t know..turning north on Monroe headed toward Collingwood and the Old West End. See you next Saturday!
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