Blogging from Mojoe's in McArthur

Guess what--McArthur has a coffee house...Mojoe's at 200 W. Main Street, formerly Jack's Bar. This is my second visit--I had a frappe yesterday and today I've sucked down a fabulous cappuccino with flavoring and whipped topping. The wi-fi is free, so I've been sitting here blogging away while customers come in and out. I feel sooo Northwest coastal, although most of the clientele so far has come in from the middle school!

It's cool having a place for coffee. It's nice to have a place to hang out without feeling like I have to order a meal...nursing a cup of coffee for an hour or two is the exact right thing to do here. It's a godsend for a writer...the right mix of isolation and companionship, private and public at the same time. Somehow, writing in public bypasses the writer's block mechanism that so often afflicts me at home. My mind is free. I even made up a new word in the course of my previous blog entry--dreamality, the state of a dream, which can have a much higher level of reality than fact. Many truths are intuitive rather than reasoned.

Mojoe's has the standard array of coffee drinks, hand-dipped ice cream (the only location for this in the county that I know of), and cookies, but has plans to start offering food as soon as they reach an accord with the health department. That will be cool, too. And, dig this: They may have bagels. Bagels. In McArthur. Not from the freezer case. That would remedy one of my greatest deprivation...I miss a good  bagel so much!

Coffee and a bagel takes me back to my college days, when I first learned to drink coffee and had my first bagel ever and learned what cream cheese was and learned that there were other kinds of cheese besides American. Those were heady times. And now we might have them right here in our town. The mists are rising in my brain...the caffeine is saturating my imagination, blending past, present, and future like the milk, coffee, and ice in a frappe. Wonderful.

See you at Mojoe's!

Reflections on...Yard-saling

Blogger is reporting from Middletown, Ohio, home of pater familias Bob Dickerson, at the conclusion of Day 2 of yard-salin’.
          I am hot, sticky, sale-shocked, eating nothing but sugar and carbs, and stupefied with water weight gain. My ankles are not looking dainty right now in the brand new shoes I bought at the yard sale next door for $3.00—Naturalizers with a nice low heel and ankle straps that are hiding under rolls of bloated tissue. "Next door" is the Middletown Senior Center, which is also having a yard sale today—some venders out on the lawn; and in the cafeteria/multi-purpose room, donated items sorted into categories—very tidy. 

          Yes, my dad (who is pretty sharp--selectively) is never slack about piggy-backing on the marketing of others—the balloons and colorful signs for the senior center also guided buyers (buyers-beware) into his ample front yard. Under the beautiful old oak by the street we spread our merchandise on large tables, loosely grouped by category (books, housewares, toys, clothing, etc.) and by source (my sister Kathy, my dad’s friend Melanie, and his neighbor Charlotte).

We had this very Vera Bradley
bag for sale--and it was
priced too high to sell

        I threw my stuff in with Dad’s stuff and didn’t worry about making money. I live to serve (ha-ha-ha) and helped out wherever necessary. The other stuff-providers, though, had certain prices they wanted for certain items and we had lots of counter-pricing going on—Dad and I were pretty much always ready to deal (Will you take $5 for this? Yes). We definitely had too many captains and not enough sailors, and even though I was there to be a sailor, well, nobody thinks I’m shy, so my opinion was often added to the pricing puree.
          The crowd at Dad’s sale differed greatly from sales in my hometown of McArthur, Ohio. In McArthur, the people are poorer, are sometimes desperate, and are often looking for low-priced necessities, not novelties or kitsch. The Middletown crowd was made up of a lot of seniors (because of the neighboring sale) and the people were pretty well off.

Typical house in Dad's neighborhood; he,
however, lives in a Cape Cod.

          Dad lives in a moderate house in a blue collar, aging area, but his street is ringed by higher-cost housing—and they came out to support the seniors (and thus Dad). It was odd to be around so many well-off people, I’m so used to the low-income people of my town. We are different in both dress and conversation. The most significant commonality was love for children and grandchildren. In both towns, people are happy to talk about children and want to buy nice things for them. They look over children’s items with critical eyes.

         Because so many different people brought stuff, we had an interesting sale—not overloaded with children’s clothing or sports equipment or any other category. Well, OK, we had too many purses, probably. And they were overpriced and the women selling them would not bargain or cut the price. I assume these purses will be leftover unsold.

          I spent lots of time getting into and out of a lawn chair (moved gradually across the yard throughout the day—to follow the shade) and a fair amount of time just chatting up the customers. Each one has a story to tell.   
          One thirty-something woman pulled up on the other side of the fence next to the driveway in a van. She got out and asked us if we wanted a walker. Dad jumped right on it and started to talk price. (Resale of lightly used medical equipment usually leads to a tidy profit.) But the woman insisted that she was giving us the walker, she wanted to give it away. Her mother had died two years ago this weekend and she was just now able to face the medical aids left over from her mom’s illness. She would be glad for Dad to make some money off of it and for it to go to people who needed it.
          We all quieted while she told us the story of her grief, and handled with respect the walker that she pulled out of the back of the van and handed over the fence. Over the fence came a portable toilet. Over the fence came two different bath benches. Over the fence came an elevated toiled seat. Over the fence came a long-handled shoe horn and sock-helper stick. Over the fence came an anti-bedsore mattress (with air pump).

         The woman’s van was crammed with stuff. She cried. Each of us had at least a quivering lip if not a tear. Turns out we were helping her with a significant event in her grieving. She and we were all sacred for a moment, right across the fence, under the oak, next door to the senior center, on Central, in Middletown, on a summer afternoon, in August.
          Sacred.

          At our most human.
         That’s yard-salin’.

Sidebar: Bob Dickerson’s Rules of the Yard Sale  My dad worked in the shoe business for several years and even though he didn’t like it very well (you had to have more loyalty to and spend more time with the store than your family), he has a natural bent toward retail. He has many sensible rules for his sales (he says, however, that no rule can't be broken). Here are some of his guidelines.
        Make some money even if you cannot make the money you want. You won’t get rich with a yard sale, but you might get some mad money to play with.
        Keep stuff off the ground as much as possible. People are not in the habit of looking down. Borrow some tables if you need to, or stretch a board across some chairs. Whatever. Dad has many tables that have detachable legs so he can store them flat.

         Fit your tables to your tarps (for sales longer than one day). Dad lays down the tall items on a table, sticks other stuff under the tables, and then throws on a tarp that fits right over that set of tables—clamp, clamp, clamp, and you’re closed.

        Open early--at least be ready at the designated start time. And, decide how you want to handle “early birds”—those people who come the night before a sale or show up at 7:00 a.m. for your sale that you advertised to start at 9:00. Dad doesn’t worry about fairness or justice—he’ll sell to any early bird who wants to shop.

        Have shade or canopies—anything that encourages people to linger a bit is good. Dad doesn’t usually sell food, but on a cool day I think an urn of coffee would not go amiss. It takes a long time to drink a cup of coffee.

        Mark prices on every item or keep all the items in a group at the same price.

        Keep prices divisible by $0.25 or $1.00; this way, you save tons of time making change—and you only need to get quarters from the bank.

        Be ready to make change. Have at least $10 in quarters, fifty one-dollar bills and 10 five-dollar bills. (Remember, you’ll get this money back out at the end.)

        Greet each customer with a smile. Have bags available for their stuff. Circulate. Tell the customer something about the item he or she is handling.

        Keep it tidy. Kathy and I spent a lot of time straightening tables, filling in gaps.

        Only put out clean merchandise. No one will buy filthy items and they bring down the whole sale. If you want to sell them, put a low price on them. Salt-stained boots? They will sell at $1.00 but not at $5.00.

         Fix broken things, if it is not too expensive. Dad recently painted the handlebars of two tricycles he bought for $5, turning $5 items into $15 items.

        Have various sizes of batteries and an electrical outlet (or plugged-in extension cord) so customers can see if things work.

        Don’t keep everything you don’t sell. Drop it off at a Salvation Army, Goodwill, AmVets, the Red Door Thrift Store, or any number of other charitable organizations.

        Don’t hold things for people unless they pay in advance. You should always stay free to sell what you have.

        Make your sale visible—put some large, sexy items out by the street. Don’t hide your light (or merchandise) under a bushel, folks. Balloons are a great attention-getter on your signs and at your site.

        Coffee mugs, golf clubs, crutches, dolls, winter clothes at summer sales—hard to sell.

        Clean stuffed animals, tools, medical equipment (except crutches), furniture, jewelry—easy to sell. However, just about anything will sell if you price it right (low).

        Have the courage to be generous. Dad often gives away toys to kids, or throws in a free item here and there. As my dad testifies, generosity almost always returns to the giver.

Instant Poems for Little Fairies

As dusk settled, so did the fairies, little girls in tights and wings, old ladies in togas and wild hats, men and boys dressed as pirates. It was Faerie Fest  in McArthur, Ohio. Children roamed the village park in costume or not, blowing bubbles, facing wicked trolls under the bridge, meeting the still fairies who would only move if you dropped a coin in their treasure chest, being painted with elaborate designs in paint or henna. The fest stretched across the park and I was most reminded of the July 4th celebration in The Music Man--a community out for a stroll and encountering wonders of art, music, food, dance, and poetry.

I did not see most of these wonders because I was the poetry fairy, Doleta (from Department of Labor Education and Training Administration, to whom I submit data in my day job). I was busy, writing 28 poems in about three hours, nine poems an hour. I never left my chair. In the paragraph above, I describe only the things I could see from my perch by the old stone drinking fountain (now only a seep)--much more was happening out of my awareness.

This is me in the hat...sorry the train doesn't show.
The girl being written for was much better dressed for
Faerie Fest.

I was adorned in a magnificent hat that looked most like a floral chandelier draped with Mardi Gras beads, wearing a dress with a train (a lace tablecloth pinned to my dress), and gold glittery sandals (ouch). On my gold and purple draped table (an old sheet and a discarded curtain) were my trusty clipboard and an assortment of pens.


I wrote poems on such a range of topics it made my head spin, from dogs and cats to chameleons; from peace to love to god; from pickles to drawing to...gosh, I can't even remember them all. I wrote a poem shaped like a spider. I wrote poems in which the first letters of each line spelled something. I would invite children to come over and get a poem of their very own--for free! Children are intrigued by poetry. Their curiosity overcomes the discomfort with poetry that has already taken root in their little souls. And no children can resist something that is specially just for them, one of a kind, on a topic of their choosing.


The child getting a poem sat in the special painted chair while I wrote, or sometimes ran along to another event and came back later, but when she heard the poem read for the first time ever, the magic happened. Eyes widened. People standing around grew quiet. The poetry time came over us all. And I folded the poem and handed it to the child. No copies made, no "I'll mail it to you." A special poem for each special child.


I didn't think this instant poetry thing up, although people think I did. I read about it in a book called Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, a book recommended by my high school English teacher Tom Romano, now a professor at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. The book advised journaling profusely (it was the first time I'd seen the word journal verbed), which I had already done for years as an adolescent, and I have forgotten most of the writing suggestions, but Goldberg's idea of instant poetry stuck with me. The poem must be spontaneous, and you must give it away. No take-backs or keepers. The choice of topic must belong to the recipient. Goldberg saw it as an exercise in really getting the words out, taking risks, letting the writing flow.


I see it now as an exercise in letting flow, but also in letting go. It's a way to train myself to be in the now in an intense way and to prevent stockpiling and hoarding. Everything goes away...even our dear Earth will burn to a cinder and our beloved star will burn itself out. I must practice and practice this nowness of the universe. A gift freely given. Take this and fly, little fairy. Spread those glittering wings and get a glimpse into magic--the magic of language, of image, of rhyme, of nonsense, of humor, of love, of now, of time.


I wrote a poem for a boy on the topic of drawing, and I ended up goosing his active intelligence (very alive eyes) by writing about what makes something real. If you can draw it, is it real? Does that mean unreal things are real? By drawing, do you actually create reality? And what does that say about writing poems, right now, on the spot? I often felt like I was writing windows into other perspectives. What is the dog really thinking? What is truly great about pickles? How does something become real? I could see the click when a kid really got it, saw something from a different angle for the first time. I love that. That's my pay.


So, writing instant poetry makes me insanely happy, and exhausted at the same time. What better way to get tired than by working your words, by letting the child choose the words and then the words choose the child. Faerie Fest was a wonderful venue for instant poetry, because the children were already primed for magic, for wonder. I was concerned though, that the belief is abroad that poetry is for little girls. I love doing instant poems for adults, but they must be coaxed, even though I can see they want one. This concerns me and amazes me, that poetry has been minimalized and is only safe if it is for the very young. And I find it funny that my poems really are little IEDs, with little explosions for the child, if the poem works. Not safe at all.


A Sample Poem
Here is the instant poem I wrote for my friend Lynn Royer, on the topic of sisters. I wrote this in under five minutes and it fills one sheet of paper. I grabbed whatever images popped into my mind and then did a sort of rapid development. It's not edited, but it serves...it communicates...and if you have sisters, it makes sense. I copied it because I have sisters and I wanted to give it away again to them.


Sisters
If parents are the foundation of a life
Sisters are most certainly the framework,
Building walls, making room for rooms,
Holding up whatever becomes the roof of your life.
Sisters are windows through which to view yourself.
Sisters are doorways for going in and out.


Without sisters, life is just a shack
Leaning a little to the left
And sometimes with a small opening in the door
Shaped like a waning third-quarter moon.


Caution to those who want to try it
Wear comfortable shoes. I think my creativity was a bit off at Faerie Fest because those damn gold sandals were pinching and grabbing and itching. Please, poets, leave vanity behind and be as comfortable as you can when you try this. It's hard to go with the flow with your dogs barking.

Bad sandals