Number 26 - Fair Weather

In the middle of May you wouldn’t expect to find temperatures in the mid-to-high 60’s with a cool breeze thrown in for good measure to keep things comfortable.  Maybe if you lived in San Diego, perhaps.  But here in Georgia it’s more likely to be warm and muggy at this time of the year, if not downright hot and sticky.  But today was one of those days with just the right combination---lazy Sunday afternoon, great weather and wanting to take it easy after a difficult week at work—for me to say ‘yes’ when Cindy asked me if I wanted to attend the annual art fair in neighboring Fayetteville.  After all, I’ve lived right next door to it for 24 years and never attended and besides, admission was free.  What did I have to lose?

The very first booth Cindy and I visited offered a variety of stained glass ornaments.  Cindy’s eyes were immediately drawn to a stained glass peace sign, the peace sign being her Achilles Heel of Must Have’s.  ‘$25,’ I thought to myself.  ‘Could be worse.’  Then she added ‘I want a stained glass window in my house someday.’  There would be no peace sign today, presumably so Cindy could use it as leverage down the road when she bought an entire window made of stained glass.

The next couple of booths featured paintings that looked like they may very well have been painted by me, who has the artistic abilities of a four-year old armed with a tray of finger paint and a box of Twinkies.  That is, if I ever took the time to paint parakeets and ballet slippers (I haven’t).

It wasn’t until we reached our fifth booth that the little plastic card in my wallet was called into action.  A husband-and-wife team were selling (her) photographs converted to (his) framed prints, and they (the art, not the husband and wife) were beautiful.  (Then again, the husband and wife may have been beautiful; after all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and since you weren’t able to beheld them, I really can’t say if you might find them beautiful so forget I even mentioned it and just know their art was beautiful.  At least in my eyes.  The parakeet and ballet slippers I mentioned earlier?  They couldn’t possibly be considered beautiful…in anyone’s eyes.)    Lots of the photographs were taken in Savannah, and I asked what else she had besides what was on display.  ‘Boats, lakes, birds, alligators, cobblestone streets…’  I stopped her in her tracks.  ‘You had me at alligators,’ I said as I butchered a line from Jerry Maguire.  (I collect all things University of Florida, to include anything featuring an alligator and as you will soon see, anything featuring the school colors of orange and blue.  Yes, it is my Achilles Heel of Must Have’s.)  She actually pulled out three photographs of alligators in a nature preserve near Savannah.  It took me a solid 15 minutes before I finally settled on the photo of an alligator’s head slightly above water with an orange reflection of sunlight in its eyes and a strip of green algae on its head.  Cindy added a photo for friends of ours (a Christmas present bought seven months early!).  The floodgates (my wallet) were now officially open for business.

We ran into Ed, our family dentist (and also a graduate of the University of Florida, a factor that may or may not have been the reason we selected him to be our family dentist 24 years ago) who thought we selected the best of the three alligator prints.  I noticed Ed was overdressed for an outdoor art festival.  Then again, Ed is the kind of person who would wear a suit and tie to special events; the midnight premier of a movie, for example or the grand opening of a new Hardees.  (Ed would appreciate me giving him a hard time about his attire.  I do it every time he’s wearing a tie while drilling on my teeth like there’s gold buried in them.  Besides, with my propensity for dental work I’m pretty sure I’ve paid for at least one of his son’s college tuitions over the years.)

I safely maneuvered my way around the next seven or eight booths—the way a soldier might navigate through a field of land mines—until Cindy found a booth featuring handmade metal jewelry.  Well, maybe not so much because of the jewelry but rather because it was designed by a woman from Turkey.  (Our good friends Ferit and Gizem are from Istanbul.)  Truth be known her designs were pretty striking, and I enjoyed talking to her husband who actually made each piece (or as he told me, ‘she designs, I grind’).  I have to admit her husband was quite the character.  A few samples:

·       We live in Alpharetta but we also have small homes in Florida and Istanbul.  We don’t have any money but we have a lot of homes.

·       I played a round of golf at St. Andrews.  I parred the last two holes.  I have no idea what I did on the rest of the course.  I still have the scorecard, but the first 16 holes are blank. 

·       I rode in a taxi in Istanbul.  The driver went straight through a red light.  I asked him why.  He said because he didn’t see anything coming. 

I dodged a few more land mines until we stumbled across a pottery tent.  The man was from Florida and displayed some really attractive creations.  In other words, the man was a dual threat.  Four serving platters later we were on our way looking for our next victim. 

It didn’t take long.  Another talented photographer was directly in our path and there was no way around it.  And by ‘it’ I mean a photograph of random blue objects on an orange background (I warned you earlier about all things orange and blue).  The blue objects were pieces of paint and the orange background was the rusted hood of an old car the photographer stumbled across in the woods.  Time to put another notch in my wallet, because this photo was mine!

Throughout the afternoon we saw more than one booth featuring photographs of the photogenic Starr’s Mill, a favorite of local shutterbugs that is (a) about four miles from my house and (b) the centerpiece of our living room, a magnificent image of the mill with a perfect duplicate of it mirrored on the surface of the lake on which it is built.  None of the photos could compare to ours, a gift from my the lens of my talented friend Al last Christmas.   Note: Cindy discovered a photo of another mill in one of the tents and said it ‘looked familiar.’  I said it was the old Rex Mill.  She looked on the back of the photo and sure enough, it was Rex Mill.  She asked me how I knew.  ‘Probably because I ran by it 3,000 or so times during the 10 years we lived in Rex.’  (Note: NOT an exaggeration; perhaps even an understatement).  Moving on…

Almost done.  If we can just make it past this one last vendor…TOO LATE!  Cindy made her way towards one last jewelry tent the way a moth makes its way towards a light.  The only difference is the moth doesn’t have a wallet. Cindy did.  Mine.

Final assessment: Two hours, 60 vendors, three photographs, four pieces of pottery, two pieces of jewelry and the opportunity to talk to a lot of really nice people.  It was actually a pretty good deal since it didn’t cost anything to get in. 

Then again, it did cost me almost $400 to leave.