In this town, as a child, you can feel the excitement in the air as your parents come home talking about the latest, best, most interesting customers. You can hear how these new customers, a married couple, pay in advance for fairly good-sized orders. In this town you can learn how friendly this couple is and how they like to talk, instead of just getting down to business. You can see how much your parents are enjoying working with these customers…whom they’ve never met. You can be reminded how one day they got a call on the telephone and how this couple inquired about a certain hard-to-find item and how your parents happened to have this particular item in stock. You can sense their reluctance to ship the item off to people they’ve never met. But when the offer was made to pay for the item before being shipped, you can hear how astonished they were when the check actually came in the mail earlier than expected.
In this town, as time goes by, your folks begin to include their customers in discussions at the dinner table; all while using first names instead of titles. In this town, you can have that very same meal interrupted by those very same names as they become friends, though they live so many miles away and you’ve only seen a vacation photograph of one of them. You can glean the photo of the lady with an exotic bird that was shipped in a box accompanied by the most foreign real-life flower you’ve ever seen. You can sit staring at the flower and the photo and imagine long sandy beaches and sunrises, while you long for the last slice of meatloaf and a seat on the opposite side of the table so you can see the television during meals.
In this town, you can examine every card and letter that comes in the mail for “Jim and Shirley’s” decorated envelopes. You can smile at the familiar stickers of Snoopy posing as “Joe Cool” and look around to find Woodstock fluttering about. In this town your ears perk up when you hear your own name mentioned in the letters and the comments and compliments of how you’ve grown over the series of photos that were sent their way. In this town, you can get extra presents in the mail at Christmas time. Just like the letters and cards, they’ll be decorated with far-away stamps and cartooned stickers. You’ll find yourself amazed as each separately wrapped gift within, even those not for you, is opened. Each box coming out of the big box, one-by-one, with different wrap and a different name on a different card, causes delight. Your siblings will be making faces as they’ve just tried pineapple candy and edible paper, while you’re holding on for dear life to what surely must be the best prizes out of the whole lot; a stuffed Snoopy and a stuffed Woodstock. In this town, you’re not sure if they’re yours, this Snoopy and Woodstock, but you pray that they are. Just as the last box is open, you’ll wonder just what the heck “origami” is while you’re glaring at some wonderfully colored squares of paper.
In this town you’ll be surprised that the origami paper was indeed not the last prize in the box. You’ll discover down deep, ‘neath the ribbons and bows and discarded tissue is a fortified box of a perplexingly small size. You might look around, wondering who’s getting married, for surely the box holds a ring. No card is attached, but it’s YOUR name that’s handwritten on the paper you’ll rip to discover what’s hidden. In this town it is you that defines “marvelous treasure” and in this case it would be a small, delicate handcrafted turtle complete with moving legs, head and tail…all with his own dome of a home of a clear-topped case. He’ll have his own yellow tissue that must have come from a far distant place, perhaps the one typewritten on the red square on his belly. You might not know anyone from Japan, but you’ll be assured they’re very wise and talented people to have created such a fine treasure.
In this town you’ll take great care of your treasures, revealing them only to those you trust most, and only some of those will be allowed to touch. In this town, time will pass and some of those treasures will remain with you always.
In this town you’ll receive an email from your brother with a subject of “Sad news” to which you’ll hesitantly open. You’ll learn right away that Jim passed away just days before. You’ll briefly discuss with your brother a few memories of the early encounters with Jim and Shirley and you’ll instantly remember your treasure tucked safely away after all these years. You’ll run and retrieve him and photograph this most handsome turtle and share with your son the story of how this turtle came to be yours.
In this town you’ll learn not all is perfect, but life can be more than work and bills. It can be a handcrafted turtle underneath a plastic dome that travels with you from today to tomorrow, and connects all the between.
Mr. Bloggerific Himself, 01132008
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Rest in peace, Jim K. It’s probably been 25 years or more since I personally spoke with you or your wife, but you both are part of very vivid childhood memories that I enjoy and carry to this very day. Those early memories are very important to me; for I am still just a great big kid in many ways and continue to have room for growth. You and Shirley are in my thoughts. -Bloggy
