It's Mother's Day here, today. Last year, this time, I think it came and went without me even noticing.
I miss my mum sorely--she was more than a mother to me, she was my friend, as well.
Growing up, she read to me, took me to museums and historic homes, went out in a rowboat with me--even put the worms on my hook, when we went fishing (something I never cared for doing).
Mum made sure we got to go on those naff summer trips, arranged by the school to the big game farm in the Catskill mountains--they had all these exotic wild animals from Africa and suchlike, in big pens, plus a few amusement rides. We went there pretty much every single summer.
I remember mum, one year, sticking up for me, and making dad take me to my favourite summer place in the whole entire world: Frontier Town. Oh, didn't this wannabe cowgirl just love it? Oh yeah! It, I suppose, would have sort of been like some kid from the UK, getting to go inside the Tardis, perhaps. I adored Frontier Town! It's gone now, auctioned off, piece by piece--oh, the property is still there--empty buildings, empty motels and empty restaurants--but all the equipment, signs, etc, were sold at auction in 2004. A sad day for those of us with fond memories. Here's a link to pictures of Frontier Town, taken the day of the auction: http://www.steveandsusangross.net/frontiertown/frontiertowngoodbye.html
http://www.frontiertown.net/
And, mum encouraged my love of horses. She patiently waited in the hot sun, while sis and I went trail riding or rode around a ring in a lesson. I remember one time, mum had this purse made of some kind of straw-like material, and some goat tried to eat it. Mum also took me to horse shows, as well, and even enrolled me in a book club, that specialized in horse stories. It was a genuine pleasure for this 12 year old, to get a horse story in the mail each month, bless mum.
Mum worked on and off, as we grew up. She worked for McDonald's for a while, and the local Montgomery Wards store, Burger King, she worked as a greeting card stocker and a babysitter, before she found her niche in the working world: Librarian. She loved it very much, and even though she had to put up with a lot of genuine idiocy by the volunteer board members (they preferred to buy designer couches and modern artwork for the library, rather than books and other materials--and always resisted giving mum a raise, and never even consulted her, when they upped and changed the libraries working hours).
Mum put up with it, and threw herself into her work with gusto--often, her library would have best-sellers long before the big libraries did, because, 1. She always made the trip to Albany on Sundays (during buying season) to buy the New York Times so she could see the most current best sellers, listed in the literary section--by doing that, she often would place her order the next day, whereas the librarians in the big city would delay their orders for buying in bulk. Mum didn't like that--she preferred to look at the book catalogs as they came in, and the lists, and get just a few books at a time--usually her orders were 8 to 10 books, where the big libraries, I was told, ordered books 50 or 60 at a time. 2. Many of the big libraries were on an automatic order system--they got whatever the book supplier sent them. Mum stopped that system, mostly, because after a year or two, she knew all her patrons and what their wants and needs were. 3. If she couldn't get a popular book by mail order, she would take money out of petty cash and buy it from Walden's book store in one of the local malls. She also did that--took the petty cash, when the bookstore was having a clearance sale--she'd sometimes get some really good reference books and the odd fiction book she might not have, for as much as 50 to 80 percent off the cover price--saving the library a nice bit of change, for the more expensive books.
I often worked alongside mum, for years. Never got paid, but she did take me out for pizza, once a week...and, whenever someone donated books the library didn't want--I got first pick, before they were consigned to the rubbish. In 1978, got an entire leatherbound multi-volume set, "British Poets" from 1814 (later stolen in 1983) it was how I got my first introduction to the likes of Spencer, Goldsmith, Cowper and others.
Mum was pleased when the library moved to its new location--the old one was in the village's former school building, and up three flights of stairs--with the naff old restrooms on the middle landing. The place was creaky, clanky and drafty. And yes, it really did house a ghost, I'm not making that up. The new building was the former Catholic church-which itself had started out in life in the 1900's, as a barn.
The "new" village library--formally St Joan of Arc church--I was baptized in, and my sister married in, this building.
She was hired as the village librarian in 1974 and stayed in that capacity until about 1988 or so, when she returned to business school and began her short new career--after working part-time for a vitamin store--as secretary for a county historian, until a bad fall ended her working career. After her fall and subsequent operation on her leg, mum never worked or drove a car ever again. But she never let that keep her down.
In the late 80's to early 90's, mum and I ran a small flea market booth. It was very tiring, sometimes--working all day, then spending nights/weekends buying things to sell at auctions, boot sales and church rummage sales...and, then, there was cleaning, pricing, loading and unloading the truck (incl. tables and chairs for us), driving to flea markets all over hither and yon, setting up, taking down, packing and unpacking, and also--often the same night, after the flea market--taking our "leftovers" back to auction and more buying. It wasn't unusual for my Saturdays, during the season, to be from 4 or 5 in the morning, until well after midnight--with just a short nap in between. Fridays--auctions or sales, and if possible, packing and loading the truck--if not possible (as when it was raining on Fridays)...meant an extra early day for me.
I remember one time--going to an estate auction and buying loads of stuff--I mean, the back of the truck was packed--and worrying about leaving everything out in the back of the truck during the night--as we'd not got in until 1 in the morning. But mum said it would be okay, sitting in the drive.---and it was...except that someone in the night, had come along and stolen my truck's tailgate! Left all the merchandise, mind--but the tailgate was long gone. The local sheriff's deputy, just looked at it, and said, "Huh." Oh yeah, justice was served. 
Mum just spent the day looking at me and shaking her head. I must say, she took it much better than I did--I bawled like a baby. I loved that truck! I'd always wanted a pick up truck, and this is the first one I'd ever had (first of three). I wound up replacing the tailgate with one of those webbed canvas stall guards that go across a horse's stall.
But the flea markets were mostly fun--tho' sometimes not so much, when it was pouring rain or boiling hot with no shade to be had. I remember once, being in an empty field in 95 degree (F) heat, having to lie down under the truck to get some shade (mum used an umbrella)--oh, did yours truly get a bad sunburn that day--ouch! And one time, it had rained buckets the night before, and the truck got bogged down in the muddy field--took me over an hour to extricate it, with the help of some plywood boards and some gravel--but man, was I a mess--mum had to do all the selling, mostly, that day. But my real nemesis, at an open air market (bless indoor sales!), was frequently a strong wind--was forever chasing things that were blowing over and/or away--ugh!!! I hate that! I think mum liked it--she got to sit and watch me fetch and get, ha-ha.
Sometimes--we were plumb broke before the start of a flea market. One time, we had to drive to a big market in the Catskill mountains--about a 2 and a half hour drive from where we were living, at the time. Our total cash on hand for the trip: 3 pennies. Yup--traveled over 50 miles with three pennies--and less than half a tank of gas. We sweated a little, let me tell you--the gas tank was literally, literally, were on "E", when we finally rolled onto the grounds of the flea market that morning. Thankfully, there were so many people there, from New York City, that, not only did mum and I sell out by noon-time, we made a huge profit as well, because not a single person asked us to drive down the price. That was our best flea market ever--mum was so tickled pink, that she, for years, laughed over our "3 cent" journey.
And, there was the people--the shysters, out to rip you off at any cost, the wheedlers--the persistant one's who would bug you and bug you to literally give them the item they wanted away for below your cost--or nearly nothing , the nice people who would just come by and chat, the true collectors who would gladly share their knowledge with you, and the browsers...which, even tho' they didn't buy, were nice to have around, because people attract people.
Most of what we sold was just whatever we could afford to buy, or think might sell. We used to try to get a few "high ticket" or unusual items--to put up front. We called these "window dressing," or "Eye-catchers." Sometimes, I 'd bring something that wasn't actually for sale--like one of my antique saddles, or maybe an antique percussion musket I used to have--just to have on display, to attract attention. I wasn't being deceptive--they always had "NFS" on them ("Not for sale"). And often, people would come over to look--and often staying to buy something. Unlike many dealers, we choose to lower our profit margin and price items to sell--often below what others had marked similar stuff in their booths. It worked--we often got twice the business, so it all evened out, in the end.
For mum and I, flea markets weren't so much a business as purely a hobby--we never made a big profit--usually our profit after expenses was 50 to 200 dollars--some of which went back into merchandise and the cost of the booth, and of course, state taxes if we were selling at a commerical market and not a church or school flea market.
Yes, I really do miss mum--sharing the good times as well as the bad.
