I have lived my life in small towns. I grew up in North East, MD; went to college in Boone, NC; was a senior high school librarian in Newark, DE for one year; was a senior high school librarian in Millers Creek, NC, for 2 years; earned my MA in Boone, NC (at the now famous small football power Appalachian); was a college cataloger in Boone, NC for 3 years; studied for my library science doctorate in Madison, WI (at over 100,000 a big town!!) for 3 years where I crashed and burned, but completed my coursework--back to Boone, NC for a year as a media professor; learned needlepoint and started working at Needle Nicely in Blowing Rock, NC, where "a star was born". And then she moved to that thriving metropolis (mild sarcasm), Vero Beach, Fl.
Yesterday one of my students stopped by for a last-minute check before she left this morning for her home in MA. She left a bag of fibers on the table. I thought to myself, it's a small town, after 5 o'clock, I'll drive over to the beach where she's renting and I'll be able to see them loading the car in the parking lot. Silly girl! I circled the parking lots for 30 minutes and then accepted defeat and drove home.
Then, this morning, a really ugly reminder that Vero is growing. Needle Nicely has had two planters with rosemary in front of the shop for over 17 years. They survived the hurricanes and the move to our current location. This is what I saw this morning when I pulled up out front.
That planter was concrete and I can't tell you how heavy it was--I'm reasonably strong for a woman and I could slide it, but I couldn't lift it. Even the pieces were too heavy for me.
As the policeman said, were they trying to steal the planter? Vero has had a spate of people throwing bricks through glass doors to gain entry. However, as the policeman said to me (frighteningly, to me--I'll be remembering that at 3am in the future, me who worries about whether the sun will come up) that there were many smaller items that could be used to break the door glass or windows. He thought they wanted to steal the planter.
And this was my bonus day, business-wise, being Feb. 29! On a lighter note, a customer from Irving, TX, was in who was visiting her mother in Palm Bay, Fl (about an hour North of Vero), and because of Jane's Chilly Hollow and Needle Nicely's blog made the trip south to Vero to spend some time and money in the shop. Whoopee!
And a new canvas designed by Laurel Burch and distributed by Danji Designs:
So bright and uplifting--just the trick after such a disturbing morning.
In Memoriam: Judy Harper, 2/28/2011
