Poor Clifford

This weekend I helped out the Art Space on Main crew with a booth at 'The North East Garden Show'... Or as I like to refer to it, 'The Poor Man's Wilmington Flower Market.

'The North East Garden Show takes place every year at the St. Mary's Episcopal Church Graveyard... Yes, you read that correctly, the GRAVEYARD. Initially I had a bit of a problem with the idea of buying and selling items in what I believe to be a solemn setting where respect should be shown. Then it ocurred to me that this might be a very old graveyard, more of a tourist attraction... But still I wondered if that should really matter.

Thursday afternoon the girls and I packed up all our pottery, a tent, potters wheel and supplies and caravaned over to St. Mary's. Once there we met up with the woman organizing the event (her first year) and she pointed us to our booth location. To my extreme horror our booth was situated directly over a fresh grave site. I knew this because of the wilted mums gracing the plastic cross and the not quite settled sod which covered a 4x6' area just below the cross... Just so we wouldn't be at all mistaken a 2x4 lay down the middle of the sod emblazoned with black sharpie reading -Please respect the grave site - Oh sure, no problem... I'm just gonna hock my pottery here, but I'll be respectful about it.

The rest of the group started unpacking the truck while I stood there gape mouthed trying to insist that this just wasn't right. THEN, the organizer lady told us we could set our tent AROUND (meaning, OVER) the grave as long as the poles weren't touching it... We could also set our table just in FRONT of the grave, but not on TOP of it... And we must be careful not to STEP on the grave... Oh and by the way, "His name is Clifford, he died 10 days ago... Would you like to see his picture in our church directory?"

Now, I'm from Southern California... It's been said that we're all a little crazy out there... But I've NEVER in my entire Southern California existence attended a craft show in a graveyard, on top of a freshly dug grave no less! The situation literally made my stomach turn. I couldn't help but worry that Clifford's widow was going to show up and lambast us for desicrating her husbands grave. Not to mention the need I had to fight off visions of nearly every horror show I've ever seen that took place in a graveyard... Remember the end of the movie Carrie?

The girls all thought I was being goofy and yes, even made jokes about Clifford being thrilled at the notion of having 7 lovely women on top of him. I eventually made SOME peace with the idea by telling myself that 'Poor Clifford' probably attended the Garden Show every year and loved it so much that he wasn't bothered with the idea of being smack dab in the center of it. Luckily we never had to deal with an upset widow... I'm not sure she attended the show... She's probably still mourning... And I just want it to be known that whenever I had to step over Clifford I apologized every time... I'd do the same for any stranger, dead or alive.

Pictured:
That's Heather (the owner) "selling" Art Space on Main... And some pottery. Clifford is directly behind the bakers rack and table in the middle under the tent. I'm on the other side of the road, so I don't have to apologize again. The picture following, is Jane showing a group of kids how much fun it is to 'throw' a pot.