Labor Day '85

Margaret M. and I

Set off for the New Paltz Arts and Crafts Fair

Which is on a field a few miles outside town  

Walking in from my car

Through a gravel and weed parking lot

Margaret tells me that she's been to this site before

Once on a double date  

The other fellow lost his keys

And they searched the grounds and parking area for them  

The keys finally turned up on the ground

Where the next car had been parked  

A dark orange butterfly flutters by  

Margaret remarks on the irony of the beautiful butterfly

In the seedy setting of the parking lot  

I rejoin with the Buscaglia pooper‑scooper‑and‑rose story

Wherein because Leo cleaned up after his dog

He got to see a beautiful rose that otherwise he would have missed

Blooming in the yard  

We decide to survey the 250 booths systematically

By weaving our way through the several tents  

Each exhibit is interesting

Some drawing one or the other of us in for a closer look  

I tell Margaret that there may well be

A special vortex or two

That will absorb me considerably

And from which she may have to retrieve me  

Near the end of our survey

We still haven't been awed enough by anything

To stay at a stall for any length of time

When we come upon a set of wood scenes,

That is, scenes made from various kinds of woods,

Of all sizes, featuring a few common motifs,

The two most common themes being sailing and hot‑air ballooning  

We both liked these exquisitely executed works of art quite a lot  

Looking at the artist's name on one of the pieces, "R. Johnson,"

I mentioned to Margaret that there was an artist named Robert Johnson

In my home town in New Jersey            

Now noticing a small white identification tag on a nearby piece

It turns out to mention Robert Johnson

From James Street in Lakewood, New Jersey

(Our family millwork business is on James Street, too)  

It's him!  

Not only that

As we walk around to the other side

Of the display that we had been at

There's Bob in person, grayer than I remembered him  

I'd met him almost 25 years earlier

When he'd been putting some custom touches on our new home  

In fact, he made the back‑lit translucent panel

With the outer‑space‑mooded scene

Which was right in front of me at my desk in my den

Where I worked from ages twelve through twenty‑three  

Bob and I chat for a few minutes

During which a lady asks him if he does switch plates  

He says no  

What an off‑the‑wall kind of thing

To expect an artist to do, isn't it?  

Then I remember that one of the other things

That Bob did in our house

Was to camouflage the light switch plates

Where there were "old brick" walls  

I want to get Margaret one of Bob's pieces

But she insists that she is unworthy of such a gift  

I buy a couple of his larger wood works for myself

And we bid him farewell  

We go back into town

And stop to get a bite to eat  

As we get out of the car

I discover that I have misplaced my comb  

We look all over the car

But it is nowhere to be found  

I really like this comb --

It's bright blue with swirly white in it

So it bothers me to lose it  

It also bothers me to lose things in general              

I figure that I must have dropped it back at the fair

Possibly in the parking lot  

I half‑jokingly tell Margaret that

I'm going to go back later to look for it  

After we eat and I drop Margaret at home

I decide that I'll take a roundabout, scenic route home, via Ellenville

And since I'll be going by where the fairgrounds are

Maybe I'll just stop there briefly and look for my comb  

As I'm approaching the fair

I realize that it's a quarter to six

And that the fair closes for good at six P.M.  

I can actually dip back into the displays

If only for a few minutes, if I so desire  

So I postpone combing for my comb

To go back to the tent with Bob Johnson's exhibit  

Will he be all packed already?  

He's still there, his display intact  

I purchase two small pieces

A sailing scene and a ballooning scene

Each piece to be a gift for a friend

One in particular a surprise for Margaret  

Bob again gives me a discount  

Some guy backs his pickup into a nearby tentpole

And we go over to straighten him and the pole out  

Again I say so long to Bob  

This time I delay before driving away  

I have a feeling that

If I'm going to find my comb

It will be along one edge of the parking area

Which we had parked next to  

As I get there, I pick a point

And start going south along the edge

Scanning the ground for a bright blue object  

The further I go the less confident I feel about seeing it  

I turn around in a last sweep and head back the way I came  

I stop near where I had started going south ‑‑

Should I continue on north or give up and go home?  

A dark orange butterfly flutters near me on the ground  

"Show me the way, butterfly," I say  

It takes off and heads north, flitting close to the ground

One carlength that way sits a bright blue comb