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Well, I have a couple stories. The first one, as happens quite frequently, is about my mother. Jay and I were in an antique store in Hutchinson, Kansas. We had browsed for a bit and Jay found a mini (1"x2") licence plate from the fifties that he wanted to spend his money on (Don't ask me). As he was making his purchase, I looked down to my left and saw this beautiful spinach-leaf-green yearbook. I thumbed through it, passing time and looking at people whose lives were just beginning. I was thinking about how between then and now, they had had families, or not, fallen in love, or not, been sick, recovered or not, gone from teenagers to adults to the elderly, and then, I saw my mom. There she was, 10th grade, a picture I'd never seen before but most definitely my mom. I found her name. I knew she had not ever owned that yearbook. I think she got the one where she's a Senior but her family would have been too poor, and her dad too stingy, to have bought a yearbook when she was in 10th grade. Her father didn't believe girls should even go to high school. There she was. I thought I was going to weep. I've been so evolved and together through the memorials and the dying, and then when I saw her 16 year old self, I was so giddy-happy and heartbroken at the same time. I showed everyone in the store. "Look, this is my mom. She's here in this book" Yeah, I bought the book.

Then, we headed to another antique store. We were in the business of looking for a tractor seat. Not the heavy, cast iron variety but the light, pressed steel version. Jay and my friend, Barry, built a go cart that needs a solid seat and we thought a tractor seat would be perfect. So, we mosey into this place and ask the old fella behind the counter if he has any tractor seats laying around. Well, no sir, he does not, BUT he calls most of the other antique stores in Hutch trying to find us one (THAT is Kansas). As we're getting ready to walk out the door and head to the next place (one with a tractor seat!) he calls over to Jay, "Son, see this penny? If you keep it till you're as old as I am, It'll be worth something" and he hands Jay a wheat back penny. The thing is, my dad and I used to collect wheat back pennies. When I find one, I always think it's my dad saying hi (I've found two in four years...each one in a parking lot right outside my car door).

I love those old fellas. They still call women, "gals", and they can sit at a table at Frase Drug Store and drink coffee, and gab all day. They're very respectful and kind and friendly, and as we'd leave wherever we were,(after chatting them up for half an hour) they would say the same thing to Jay. Either, "Nice to meet you, son" or "Now take care of your mother."

One more thing. See this bag? It's dried banana chips, no added sugar.
They do not even taste like cardboard, they taste like rubbing alcohol. I am trying very hard to be healthy. I have started taking vitamins again. I do not always drive up and down the parking lot at the grocery store until I find a close parking space, I actually walk from 12 cars down (sometimes). But I cannot eat these strange banana things. I obviously want healthy, high fiber, vitamin filled food that tastes like chocolate. Damn.