Quite like a restless King Tut,

I yearned to avoid a rut.

Wide-eyed, toured a marketplace so Victorian

Everything  everywhere, yet no DeLorean!

Repurposed bricks, mortar — transformed from Presbyterian church–

Its irony hurled me into conflicted “museum” lurch.

Realizing tombs, spires, stained glass, pyramids and kitty cats 

Cannot be “taken with you” unto the great hereafter–(RATS!)  

Weddings, Sunday School, Brownie Troop 210, May Breakfasts, Ladies’ Church “Circles”, gatherings past,

Chop Suey dinners, Babbitt-ish Rotary crowded my memory while browsing, aghast,

Either sides of aisles bulging with caned rockers, presidential posters, butter churns and toys,

Hoosier cabinets, Horatio Alger books, magazines, spinning wheels, glass marbles for boys!

Bible verses remind us to spurn the material.

Still, archival treasures charm one with the ethereal.

Cookies, muffins, cucumber sandwiches, cups of coffee

Provide fuel and sustenance via the basement café!

Of course, I wish to stay and stay only to return another glorious sun-shiny day,

But “I have promises to keep”: a dental appointmenttwo cobblestone blocks the other way!

(Purchase life-sized, rusty, bear statue fashioned from tin?) 

Rush into lobby to await a replaced filling (-in)!

We wait, I and my antique grizzly Winnie the Poohwho’d vacated a pulpit to accompany me.

(Loretta Young last evening survived a tooth extraction, then married Hugh O’Brian on retro tv!)

Dr. Jim and hygienist Amy discuss “The Shape of Water” as I stare up speechless, then try to spit.

I inquire whether dried up boomer patients lose their ability to lick envelopes and must thus quit?*

Ah, life in a small town!  Walking to most any destination.  Accessibility to churchy churches or museum churches. Nobody plays too rough.

Humans who know us by our first names. Sidewalksconnecting beauticians to veterinarians to chiropractors and to the dentist who is a film buff. 

But best of all?  To receive the greatest compliment of my lifetime after seven decades of existence (as furthermore a Democrat)?

My inquisitiveness re the waning potency of elderly spittle? “Fear not, dear, you produce the saliva of a 20 year old!”*  And that was that!

(Thanks, Dr. Jim!)

“..and above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.  Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Roald Dahl

signed: The Old Type…Writer!