Sundries

Reverse souvenirs - business cards tacked up inside The Old Absinthe bar in New Orleans-

In 4th-6th grade, if I'm remembering correctly, St. Louis public schools taught geography. Each week we learned about some new place on earth, what the climate was like there, what the exports were, what they needed to import, facts about life in that place. These were my favorite lessons, and I wanted to travel the world when I grew up. Being a person who has simply floated through the fog of life, I didn't plan a way to make travel much of a reality for myself. Traveling was always in the future. Now I'm older and trying to squeeze it in whenever I can.

In November, we went to New Orleans. As you can imagine, the souvenir shops were prevalent, but in one place we went, people had tacked up their business cards. This place has big double doors on two sides, and they keep them open most of the year, apparently, and the dampness gets in. Many of these cards are faded to nothing and no one seems to ever remove them, either. It was a funny thing to see...an, I was here and left this behind, kind of thing. Looking at a few of them, I had a little sad daydream about a hurricane blowing them all off the walls and washing them out to sea. Bob's Towing and Hair by Alana tossing in the surf.

When I went to the beach today, here in Florida, I found a very nice sea sponge. It's smaller than an egg, and it was right next to my foot when I stopped to look around for a good place to sit. I did bring it home, and hope it doesn't mind joining the collection of other things that remind me of where I was.

May your journeys be fruitful, educational, and uplifting in 2022!  ~Dorothy Dolores