Red Letter Day

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This encounter happened during the summer of 2014.

Today was a Red Letter Day for a gal who sells macraméd hemp products by the side of the road. In one day, I experienced a trifecta of the things people have said to me repeatedly over the course of three summers. (This is the first time they’ve been said to me all in one day.)

#1 Someone offered to sell me weed and seemed surprised when I said I don’t smoke it.

#2 An old man joked about smoking hemp to get high.

#3 A woman told me she used to do macrame and (bonus!) said she’d even made a macrame owl wall hanging.

To make the day even weirder, an older (at least 60 years old) man (who looked like a white guy to me) told me (as he was trying on one of my necklaces) that he used to be an Osage Indian. I was under the impression, once an Osage Indian, always an Osage Indian, so I asked him what he is now. He said his wife made him move to Dallas.

Then he said (slyly), My wife’s a cougar. Do you know what that is?

I said yes, while in my head I was thinking, if she likes younger men and she’s married to you, she must be 85 years old.

At that point, he told me he likes younger women. I wondered if he was hitting on me, but I kept that in my head too. To sell a $20 necklace, I’ll let some old guy married to a cougar hit on me. So he bought the necklace and seemed less weird. We chatted a few more minutes, then he walked on.

I saw the woman he met up with. She didn’t look 85 (or like a cougar, for that matter). She looked like your average uptight 65 year old Texas lady.

Was he fucking with me?

To learn more about hemp go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/19/hemp-2/.

To read more about customers, go here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/12/09/selling-hemp-again/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/12/14/mean-daddy/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/11/12/hard-times-on-the-highway/, here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/09/26/turtle-ass/, and here: http://www.rubbertrampartist.com/2015/03/17/how-much-are-these/

About Blaize Sun

My name is Blaize Sun. Maybe that's the name my family gave me; maybe it's not. In any case, that's the name I'm using here and now. I've been a rubber tramp for nearly a decade.I like to see places I've never seen before, and I like to visit the places I love again and again. For most of my years on the road, my primary residence was my van. For almost half of the time I was a van dweller, I was going it alone. Now I have a little travel trailer parked in a small RV park in a small desert town. I also have a minivan to travel in. When it gets too hot for me in my desert, I get in my minivan and move up in elevation to find cooler temperatures or I house sit in town in a place with air conditioning I was a work camper in a remote National Forest recreation area on a mountain for four seasons. I was a camp host and parking lot attendant for two seasons and wrote a book about my experiences called Confessions of a Work Camper: Tales from the Woods. During the last two seasons as a work camper on that mountain, I was a clerk in a campground store. I'm also a house and pet sitter, and I pick up odd jobs when I can. I'm primarily a writer, but I also create beautiful little collages; hand make hemp jewelry and warm, colorful winter hats; and use my creative and artistic skills to decorate my life and brighten the lives of others. My goal (for my writing and my life) is to be real. I don't like fake, and I don't want to share fake. I want to share my authentic thoughts and feelings. I want to give others space and permission to share their authentic selves. Sometimes I think the best way to support others is to leave them alone and allow them to be. I am more than just a rubber tramp artist. I'm fat. I'm funny. I'm flawed. I try to be kind. I'm often grouchy. I am awed by the stars in the dark desert night. I hope my writing moves people. If my writing makes someone laugh or cry or feel angry or happy or troubled or comforted, I have done my job. If my writing makes someone think and question and try a little harder, I've done my job. If my writing opens a door for someone, changes a life, I have done my job well. I hope you enjoy my blog posts, my word and pictures, the work I've done to express myself in a way others will understand. I hope you appreciate the time and energy I put into each post. I hope you will click the like button each time you like what you have read. I hope you will share posts with the people in your life. I hope you'll leave a comment and share your authentic self with me and this blog's other readers. Thank you for reading.  A writer without readers is very sad indeed.

41 Responses »

  1. Oh my heck (as my cousin would say!)… I’m laughing at the visuals of the old man who’s married to the non-cougar. Ha! Laughing WAY out loud! Thanks for the chuckles… what a hoot!

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