Category: Uncategorized

With the Beautiful and Spirited Sophia

We reach Monistroika Square, our meeting spot, and sit on a short wall next to the old town church surrounded by new shops. A petite young woman with blonde hair walks up and says, “Mrs. Brown?”

Ahh. We are in the right place. Sophia has found us. 

Sophia is 90 pounds of 100% Greek. But she’s unlike most Greek women. First, she’s 40 years old and unmarried. Second, she dyes her hair blonde. Third, she’s tiny. Fourth, she’s wearing short black shorts and a white tank top. 

“Greek men are useless,” Sophia laughs. “They don’t have decent jobs and often struggle financially. Why would I leave  my mother’s home, where I live free of rent and my mother buys and prepares my food, to struggle with a man?”

Makes sense.

Sophia loves her Greek coffee and cigarettes, yet she never lights up during our private gourmet tour of old town Athens. Even though she’s barely 5 foot, Sophia walks through the streets of Athens like she owns the place.

We set out for our 4-hour tour at 10 a.m. with Sophia leading us out of the touristy area to where real Greeks buy shoes and attend church.

Our first stop is an ordinary corner bakery. Sophia settles us at a table for three then she speaks to a woman who prepares a little cheese pie and spinach pie (spanakopita) for tasting. Thank the mythical Gods, everything in Greece is made with phyllo. “Pita” means pie. So spanakopita is spinach pie. They  make everything into delicious savory or sweet pies.

Every Greek region and island has its specialty pie made of local cheese and greens. Pies are also made from milk, meats and fruits… with drizzled honey!

We eat the cheese and spinach pies, keeping in mind we’ll sample foods for the next four hours. Still, I eat it all. Shameless.

We move onto the street where Sophia stops at a food cart and buys a baked circle of thin bread covered in sesame seeds. The vendor puts it into a paper wrapper and hands it to me.

“Greek people will nibble on these throughout the morning,” Sophia says as she marches. “It’s another excuse to eat!” Brent and I take turns biting the crisp bread.

“When we cross this street, we’ll be in a real Greek neighborhood,” Sophia says while staring down drivers and using her index finger as a command to brake.

Brent and I are thrilled to see authentic Greeks going about their authentic Greek lives.

“All these people,” Sophia says with a flourish of her right hand indicating men and women window shopping or speaking on the street, “they’re Greek!”

We pass a Greek Orthodox Church and when I comment on it, she insists we go in. I’m not budging because the sign says, “No shorts.”

“Go! Go!” Sophia insists, holding the door open and pushing us in.

“I’m not going,” I say. “I’m wearing shorts.”

“They won’t care because you’re not Greek,” she says. “Me, they won’t allow me in because I’m Greek.” Her shorts are shorter than mine.

Sophia has such a strong will, I can’t resist. Plus, I understand she’s only insisting because she thinks it will add to our experience. I mean, who ever heard of a church on a gourmet food tour?

I follow Brent in, reverently. Our eyes adjust and I see old Greek women at the front of the church queued to speak to the gray-bearded priest in his long black robe.

Other women knell in front of glass-enclosed shrines. They rise and kiss the glass.

The architecture is beautiful. A deep blue ceiling is dotted with gold stars, which sounds like the ceiling our guide described for the now-gone Parthenon and the entry buildings to the Acropolis.  

Brent, one of only three men in the entire church, stops in the back and I stand just behind him, trying to look invisible. I’m not religious, but I well understand sacred space, particularly for those who belong there. To our left, in an alcove, is a handsome young priest, perhaps in his early 40s, who is keeping a careful eye on the proceedings.

Sneaking out, I turn toward the back and there’s Sophia, outside the double doors, but craning her head inside, along with her right arm pointing as she says, “Take one of those!”

I look to where she’s pointing, at a desk/counter just inside the door with a woman sitting behind it. On the counter is a basket with small plastic bags of flour. I don’t want a bag of flour and keep walking. Sophia’s head and arm are active, though, and she’s whisper-yelling, “Take it! Take it!”

I pick up a bag to appease her (the price for being able to flee the church) and hear a voice say, “Excuse me!” It reverberates against the blue ceiling loud enough for everyone in the church to hear. Of course, it’s the good-looking priest, approximately 6 foot 3 inches, slender in his floor-length robe with a face like the guy who plays Riggs on Grey’s Anatomy.

Busted.

“That is for people who will bake bread for the church,” he says with very little Greek accent. “I don’t think you plan to make bread.” He reaches for the flour. He isn’t mean, but he isn’t nice. I just smile like a simpleton as he takes the flour out of my hand. I say, “Okay, thank you,” as though he is giving me something and escape outside, but not before Sophia has a curt exchange in Greek with the priest that most folks can easily hear. 

Sophia asks me what he said. I tell her.

“It’s not for making bread for the church,” she says with an eye roll. “The church is wealthy. People make large donations, including leaving their apartments when they die, which causes all kinds of family problems.” She’s a member of the Orthodox Church, she admits, but doesn’t allow it to dictate how she runs her life. 

Well, I didn’t want to intrude on the church in the first place. But how much goodwill would they have fostered by allowing me to the damn four tablespoons of flour? I’ve always been stumped by how much money goes into a church’s building, its décor and artifacts.

Hoping to forget about the handsome priest, I match Sophia’s quick pace until we see an old-timey bakery with a sign in front that reads, “Established in 1932.”

Seeing Sophia head for the bakery’s door makes me happy!

The shop’s specialty is Loukoumades, a doughnut-shaped treat made of flour and water, deep fried and coated in hot honey. Sophia’s 90-year-old grandmother brought her to this shop when Sophia was a small child. It feels like an old cafeteria, with foam green tile walls and everyone using trays. Most patrons are elderly, and alone. “This is nostalgic for them,” Sophia says about the patrons. They all have the same thing; a plate with six of the treats floating on honey. Sophia disappears and returns with our own tray and plate of six, which Brent and I gobble up in short order. 

As we leave, we pass a table where a very old woman sits with what appears to be her granddaughter. They chat and chew Loukoumades. The tradition continues!

“Some people look at me and think they should treat me like a child,” Sophia says. She has spunk aplenty, though, and a sharp intellect. Sophia can hold her own. She’s still irritated with the Turks for invading Greece and ruling for 400 years, from the 1400s until 1802, and for destroying monuments and forcing the Greek culture underground. “I’m just grateful we don’t speak Turkish and wear Burkas.”

Sophia’s brother lives in Hong Kong and she visits him each year. 

Our next stop is an authentic Greek coffee shop preparing coffee old-style, which is bitter. They serve the coffee with small sides of sweets made from just about anything; lemon, tomatoes, eggplant, cherries and other veggies. The small pieces of fruit or vegetables are cooked in sugar and water until it’s a syrup. The pieces remain whole, not crushed. 

We watch as the tall, slim Greek barista with a small, gray beard grinds fresh coffee for each cupful. He places a little sugar and water into a brass cup with a long, straight handle. He then pours the coffee grinds into the little cup and squashes it into a tray of sand with a hot plate underneath. He pushes the sand up and around each cup so it heats evenly, and the grinds fall into the water mixture. After a few minutes, he stirs each cup with a long-handled spoon. 

A pretty young woman who reminds me of my daughter, Jaime, brings our coffee on a tray. My plate holds the brass container and a small white cup in which the barista poured just a splash of coffee. Nearby, she places a plate of sugared baby eggplants, and another small plate of Turkish delights.

“Sip the coffee from the cup,” Sophia instructs, “and then pour the remaining coffee into the cup. Pour it all!” We do, and the coffee goes to the exact rim without going over. I admire the velvety foam. 

We sip coffee and take nibbles of the candied eggplant. The two flavors together are actually quite nice. Brent and I normally only drink decaf, but he opted for the caffeinated while I ordered decaf. Sophia can’t understand why anyone would drink coffee without the caffeine. I tell her I want to create my own energy, versus living off of caffeine’s artificial stimulation. 

“What are the potential ill effects of caffeine?” Sophia asks. She drinks eight shots of coffee each day. Before she met us at 10 a.m., she had taken two double shots, and she was now enjoying a shot of espresso with us. 

“I’m sleeping much better at night since I switched to decaffeinated,” Brent says.

I’m unable to articulate any ill-effects, but tell her how I quite cold turkey, which wasn’t smart, and had a headache for ten days, and got so depressed I questioned my existence and thought it would be okay if I died. I wasn’t suicidal. But I did think about death as my body got used to operating without caffeine.

“I’ll bet it tastes different,” she finally says, with a disapproving look. “I have stopped smoking seven times. When I wasn’t smoking, I didn’t have energy and my thoughts were slower. I didn’t feel normal. I missed feeling normal, so I started smoking again.” 

“Take a sip,” I tell her and hand her my cup. “Now taste Brent’s.”

We all take turns sipping the decaf and caffeinated. Ultimately there is a difference. Decaf isn’t as flavorful.

Because the coffee is unfiltered, the grounds make a sludge filling half the cup. She warns us not to sip any sludge. Brent picks up his cup and a spoon and pretends to take a big mouthful. 

Sophia leans forward and yells, “No!” Brent laughs and soon she is laughing, too. 

The Turkish delights are little rectangles of jellied candy covered in powdered sugar. Sophia explains that folks can’t distinguish if it is a Greek recipe, or something adopted from the Turks when they ruled Greece. The candies are flavored pine and rose. The pine tastes just like a pine tree and the rose tastes just like perfumed rose water. I don’t care for either of those odd flavors.

“If you like them,” Sophia says, “they are Greek. If you don’t like them, they are Turkish!”

We leave the coffee shop and walk a couple of blocks to the meat market. Vendor stalls equipped with refrigerated cases line the corridor. The concrete floor is wet from constant hosing down. It is hard to listen to Sophia talk when looking at all the animal corpses hanging from hooks; rabbits skinned of everything except the white fur on their feet and tails; Goat heads skinned with eyeballs intact; cow heads; innards that include the lungs heart and intestines.

“Greeks don’t eat lamb,” Sophia says. 

Brent takes lots of photos of everything. I’m not comfortable looking at the carcasses, which makes me a hypocrite because I eat meat. I can’t get through the meat market fast enough.

We exit the meat market and turn right into the fish market. 

Next we’re surrounded by tables of spices and nuts. Vendors give us samples of walnuts, almonds and pistachios. Brent is consumed with looking at all the spices in plastic bags. He buys oregano and a powder for making Tzatziki (just mix it with Greek yogurt). He also buys a snack made of honey and sesame seeds. 

At the fruit market, we try all types of olives; green, Kalamata and black prepared with and without salt. One is stuffed with red peppers. Yum. Brent buys a small basket of fruit that looks apricots or persimmons. A vendor peels one and offers it to Brent, so Brent buys it with Sophia’s assistance. 

Sophia purchases cherry tomatoes from her favorite vendor to prepare traditional Greek salad at a future stop on the tour. A woman in a burka pushes her way next to Sophia, who is talking to me and Brent. The woman then pushes Sophia to the right using her body.

“Do you see what this woman is doing to me?” Sophia asks. “She is pushing me out without evening looking at me.” Sophia stands her ground and pushes back. The woman keeps talking to her companion and keeps pushing, ignoring Sophia. 

As we walk away, Sophia says, “She thinks I have no value because I’m a non-believer. Like I’m not human.” There is truth in what Sophia says and I share with her my experience of a group of Muslim women in burkas at the Nairobi airport. They sat on the bench where I had been sitting for an hour and slowly pushed me, trying to crowd me out, but I would not be moved. As the old spiritual says, “Like a tree planted by the water, I shall not be moved.”

Our next stop is a lovely shop selling Greek food products. Sophia sets us up at a small table in the back and begins to make Greek salad, shooing us to explore the store. Brent selects several vacuum packs of olives. While we eat Sophia’s salad, we also sample wines from Crete and other islands. 

“Traditional Greek salad is only tomatoes, crumbled feta and olive oil,” Sophia says. “Greeks don’t like red onions, but they always add red onion for the tourists.” She insists on using cherry tomatoes cut in half. All other Greek salads we try are made with cut-up large tomatoes, and it’s not the same as Sophia’s salad. She spritzes a cherry-flavored olive oil, from the Isis brand, and a balsamic truffle vinegar on our salad. They are both amazing. We buy both products, which are reasonably priced.

By the time we check out of the store, we’re behind schedule. Our tour is only supposed to run four hours, until 2 p.m. It’s 2 p.m. now and we still have two stops to make! We’ve been doing lots of talking throughout the day. We decide to visit the meat shop and forgo the gyro shop because Brent and I have already been eating gyro. 

The meat and cheese shop was started by two Armenian brothers in the 1930s. With customer input, they began preparing Greek meats and cheeses. Sophia brings a sweating carafe of water and I divide it equally between me and Brent. Because it’s a hot day and we’ve been out of water, I take a mouthful of the drink and instantly realize it’s not water, but some kind of alcohol! I sip it back into the glass and feel extremely wasteful. Brent likes it and continues to sip. I’m mortified that I’ve now dispensed the entire carafe and won’t be drinking it. I apologize to Sophia several times. She won’t have any of it. It’s far too much for Brent to drink as well, or he wouldn’t be able to walk home!

We try Buffalo salami and beef pastuma, a meat Greek’s love to use in pies, sandwiches, etc. Brent buys a chunk of pastuma made from camel meat, the way it was traditionally prepared by the Armenians. He also bought hard beef salami.

When our tour is officially over, Brent asks if Sophia knows where a currency exchange is and she says yes. She graciously takes us there. We’re ready to go back to the Acropolis, where the Segway tour office is located, and Sophia offers to help us find it because she lives near the Acropolis. We are very grateful for her assistance! It is now 3:15 and our tour starts at 4 p.m.

With the address of the Segway tour office, Sophia leads the way, up one street then down another. We walk in the front of a row of restaurants where men at each place tell us how great their food is, and how deep their restaurant’s heritage. They push business cards on us. Sophia calls the Segway tour office to find out exactly where they’re located. We turn around and go back by all the restaurants with the men still talking to us. “Remember me?” one yells.

Sophia walks us right to the tour office. We say a difficult goodbye as the Segway folks look on. How can we properly thank her for such a personalized tour and for going out of her way to find the exchange and the Segway tour?! We tip her well and hope it’s enough to convey how much we appreciate her energy, time, thoughtfulness, and how much we enjoyed being around her, like spending the day with a spirited and fully-alive friend!

Skateboarding is his Passion

Ever had a passion in your life that was a constant? Even if you become distracted by life’s happenings, you somehow find your way back to it, every time… as though it’s your obsession? Maybe a loss or a gain, or a quiet day of contemplation brings it all back to you, and once again you tear out the walls of your life to make room for your obsession. 

For my son James, skateboarding has been his constant.

“I had a big, Ninja Turtles 80s-style board when I was really little,” James says, “like age 5 or 6 years old, but I’d only sit on my butt and roll. Later, I put together a “Frankenstein” from old boards, trucks and wheels my friends gave me.”

James remembers the weekend at Southlake Mall when he was in an arcade playing Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter II, and his sister Jaime tapped him on the shoulder.

“I turned around and y’all surprised me with a K-B Toys skateboard with plastic trucks, and although it didn’t roll very fast, it was perfect for learning beginner tricks. I learned a few tricks and developed more board control and started going down big hills and driveways and stuff. I’ve been hooked ever since.” 

James is turning 33 in November and has yet to let go of his dream. 

But why?

“I love everything about skateboarding,” James says. “It feels so free, it keeps me in shape, allows me to interact with our environment, and doesn’t have coaches or rules like other sports. I can learn as many tricks as my body will allow, and skating keeps me disciplined.”

James says I always told him to follow his dreams (for years I had a bumper sticker on the back of my forest green Caprice Classic that said “Follow Your Bliss”), so he took my advice grew up wanting to do what he loves and getting paid for it. 

Like most people pursuing a passion, James has had plenty of reasons to give up. It’s hard. Staying focused can be difficult. Friends drop out of the skateboarding world and move on. Making a living to pay the bills is paramount to pursuing dreams. Oh, but wait, James eschews a traditional career so he can remain free to skate. That means he goes without a lot of things, which most people go to work everyday to afford; a place of his own and/or a new car. He rents a bedroom from a friend and drives a 2007 Prius. He doesn’t get paid for skateboarding… but he does receive boards, clothes, shoes, etc., from his sponsors.

Even though money is tight, James won’t skimp on healthy food; keeping his body perfectly tuned is his main aim. And he drinks lots and lots of water (I’m his mother, I have to stay on him about something other than reminding him to not destroy public or personal property in his pursuit of skateboarding perfection!). 

“I’m a human before I’m a skateboarder,” James says, “and I respect my body, mind and soul so they can take me to my highest potential/calling. I feel as healthy and talented as ever, like a seasoned veteran, but with a youthful approach.”

He pushed himself as a teenager and into his 20s, and allowed his skating career to evolve organically, letting things happen naturally. While in middle school, James became sponsored by Ruin, a new skate shop in Sandy Springs. He spent a lot of time with his friends hanging out at the shop, learning from others and skating in the shopping center. He has remained friends with Ian, the shop owner, ever since.

Pipe Grind: Chattanooga, TN, printed in Thrasher Magazine

Pipe Grind: Chattanooga, TN, Thrasher Instagram

“I have so many sponsors now,” James says, “sponsors I used to wish for. They came through because I never gave up on working hard… with a smile.“

As a kid, James was always on his skateboard, even in the house. He stood on the board while watching TV and would work on flipping the board. Sometimes I tolerated it, sometimes the thought of oil from the trucks getting on the carpet was a bit too much.

If James wasn’t physically on his board, he would pull out his finger board and ride his two fingers on the miniature replica, mimicking all types of flips. If we were in the car, his fingers would ride the board all over the dash, languidly, which is James’ style. On the dinner table, he’d stack up a few books to resemble a skate park and he’d ride the fingerboard over the books.

From the age of 10 onward, James would sketch out his tricks in cells, like a storyboard for a movie. He would watch tapes (before everything went digital) and write out the sequence of his tricks. He hung out with skate fanatics like himself, guys from his schools who were good at photography or video, and they’d find locations all over Atlanta (and later cities up and down the east coast, and then San Francisco) to shoot “footy.” Again, James would detail out the sequence of his moves in sketches. He ate, slept and drank skating; the definite of obsession.

Inspired by originality, James is drawn to people whose spirit shines true in what they do, those who express themselves from the heart, with positivity.

Often influenced by people who have nothing to do with skateboarding, James wonders if that’s why he still has a fresh outlook and approach to skateboarding. He’s inspired by anyone who makes sacrifices to be true to themselves and humanity, because he believes we’re all one.

“I’m a fan of expansion and seeing the big picture, of people who push the boundaries of thoughts and feelings, who bring everyone with them to the next dimension and beyond. Bruce Lee. Salvador Dali. Helen Keller. Anne Frank. Malcolm X. Gandhi. And so many more, including fictional characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and characters from X-Men.”

James spent September of this year in Bordeaux, France, filming with Minuit and hanging with his good friend Yoan Taillandier, a renaissance man whose talents and skills reach beyond the norm. Yoan is the mastermind behind Minuit (French for “Midnight”), which has a distinct aesthetic of skateboard audio/visuals shot mainly at night. Minuit offers clothing and accessories under the Magenta brand.

As for his skate style, James may be a little ahead of his time. He strives for street-skate art. Don’t talk to him about half-pipes or Tony Hawke. Now, Chad Muska, a pro who rode for Shorty’s skateboard company in the 90s, was one of James’ favorites to watch. Muska is the reason James wore everything “Shorty’s” as a teenager.

“I feel like a meteor that’s going to crash into the skateboard world and change the chemistry of it all,” James says. “All I have to do is keep being me, staying true and working hard.”

Am I super proud of James? Absolutely. Do I get scared when I hear him talking about sleeping in his Prius as part of his super thrifty take on the world? You bet. And then I remember what a good soul he is, wise from trying and making things happen, and I don’t worry so much.

Currently, James is working on a video sponsored by Adidas and being filmed in Tennessee. 

“I feel blessed to be able to still skate at my age and have supporters I respect. My best is yet to come, I love staying productive and always having skate videos, footage or magazine/web articles ready for release.”

I’m writing this blogpost as though James is just another subject of an article, rather than my own flesh and blood. The truth is, I sensed James before he was born. His face came to me in a dream when I was pregnant with him; I can still see his white hair and blue, blue eyes from the dream. I’m not a woo-woo kind of person, but when James was about 2, I had a premonition the doctor would find a medical condition in his tiny little body, and when the doctor shared his diagnosis, I wasn’t caught blind-sided (and James is fine). I’ve always felt that connection with James on a visceral level, and when we  drum with our fingers on countertops or tabletops, we get into a groove of perfect timing on a physical level. It’s uncanny, like playing an instrument with yourself. 

Me and James: Summer 1989

Me and James: Christmas 2016

My sense of James started before he was born and continues to this day. I can feel him, who he is. I admire his tenacity in pursuing skateboarding as his all-out passion. I worry that I didn’t push him in other directions that might have brought him more life satisfaction. Like many mothers, I worry I did mostly wrong, and very little right, by my children.

I’m proud of James, the man he’s become, and I’ll always be proud of him, whether he hits the skateboard world like a meteor or not. 

Spotlight interviews with James:

• http://tennskate.com/james-coleman-interview/
• https://sponsormonsterdm.com/2016/12/19/the-flowfessional-an-interview-with-james-coleman/
• https://minuitaudiovisual.com/james-coleman-spot-itw/: Note: Overall, this a fine interview. James does an excellent job talking about some of his projects,  the interspersed video footage gives viewers a glimpse of James’ breadth as a skater and we gain insights into the many talented people who surround him. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t state this reminder: women are human beings, not objects for men’s entertainment.

James’ Current Sponsors

• Theories brand clothing, and Theories of Atlantis.  
• Magenta skateboards.
• Reality Grip; hand-painted grip by Eric Staniford, my florida skate friend from way back who now lives in LA. He supplies me with Entitled Reality Grip, which features images of iconic and inspiring people. 
• Broadcast wheels.
• Harvest roots ferments; a locally-produced kombucha company from the southeast. 
• Westside Skateshop (Jon Montesi’s skateshop in Florida. I’ve ridden for them since I was a teenager. Jon still helps me out so much to this day. Thanks Jon!)
• Shaqueefa O.G.; Tampa squad/shirt company. (You’ve seen Ishod, Koston, and Grant Taylor wearing them for years.)
• Minuit audio visual-primo global nigh skating vids/clothing from the mind of my good friend and frenchman Yoan Taillandier.  
• Supra Footwear-flow.

Touring Paros in the Orange Screamer

Brent and I are tearing down a two-lane road on Paros island, Greece, in a small quad Brent has dubbed the Orange Screamer. We left Parikia, the port city, and are headed to villages on the opposite coast. 

I see a brown sign announcing an ancient marble quarry near the village of Marathi. 

“There’s an ancient marble quarry ahead,” I yell to Brent. He pulls the screamer over when we see the place, and parks next to two other cars crowded just off the roadway, at the beginning of a 15-foot-wide pathway laid with marble brick. We walk the path and find the quarry. 

I later learn the Parian marble found here is one of the finest varieties and was the favorite of renowned Greek sculptors because of it’s transparency, which allows light to penetrate the marble and produce a distinct radiance. Parian marble can have a transparency as high as 7 centimeters, while other marbles, such as Penteli, have only 1.5 centimeters transparency. 

The marble was so sought-after, supply outstripped demand and it became expensive. Archaeologists estimate that 75% of all sculptures created in the Aegean islands were made out of marble from Paros. The acclaimed Venus de Milo and Hermes statues were sculpted from Parian marble. Structures believed to be made from the marble include the treasury of the temple of Athena at Delphi, the temple of Apollo and the magnificent temple of Solomon.

A nearby deserted building was once a French mining company believed to supply the marble for Napoleon’s tomb in 1844. 

On the downside, at the height of the Roman empire, it’s believed the quarry employed 150,000 slaves as miners. The quarry operated from the 3rd century B.C. to the 7th century (and then by the French company for a short period in the 19th century).

Near the quarry, I’m drawn to a little shelter surrounded by blooming and colorful plants. Is it a nursery? A marble carving studio? 

An older man is speaking Greek to other visitors who appear to not speak Greek. He gesticulates and points to framed photos on the wall. He’s a happy man, spreading cheer as Brent and I walk through. He has groomed plants in large, square cheese tins and other playful planters. A peddle sewing machine sits nearby. On a table are hand carved marble ornaments.

He pinches off pieces of Basil and gives them to me and Brent, gesturing for us to smell and taste and enjoy.

His has a set-up that demonstrates how marble was manually carved. He even has a little model made of marble, a building next to a slope that goes underground. From the building extends a rope with equipment suited to haul out marble; a tiny marble replica of how they mined marble. 

I’m enchanted by his green thumb, and the interesting “used” items on display. 

“Mama. Papa,” he says to me, pointing to a framed portrait of a couple. Mama, mama, mama, he says, pointing at another photo, to indicate his great-grandmother. He points to the sewing machine and says Mama.

He’s smiling broadly and saying other things in Greek. We listen and watch his hands dance and nod yes, smiling. He is so adorable. 

Behind his table of wares is a wall; solid on the bottom and windows on the top. The window panes are grimy but we can make out a chair and a blanket. Brent thinks he lives here. 

I must buy something from him. Other folks look around and leave, but I want to support his good cheer and his hand-carving of marble, so I select a perfect heart, about 3 inches at the widest, for 6 Euros. He very carefully wraps the heart in paper, then tapes it closed. All merchants throughout Greece wrap every item and then place them into gift bags. They’ll staple the gift bag closed, or will tape it closed, and always attach their business card. 

But I don’t need a gift bag and show him I’ll simply put it in my purse. Brent and I plan to create mosaics from the goodies we find in Greece (rocks from the beach, sea glass, pottery pieces, etc.) and this heart will be a charming addition. He offers to write a receipt and I say no. I should have let him, though, because then I would have his name. 

Brent takes photos as I transact with the gentlemen. He is so joyful, I can’t resist giving him a hug. Then he poses in his all joyousness for Brent, with his arm over his head. 

We get back into the Orange Screamer and head for the next village, Lefkes.

Often, I think of this happy marble carver in his garden on the edge of a quarry, sharing his family portraits and his love for life. 

I regret not knowing his name. 

Kit Carson is Alive and Well and Living in New River, AZ (at least for a couple more weeks)

Last night, Brent told me about a yard sale in our neighborhood where he spent two hours going through jewelry-making tools and supplies, including precious stones and gems.

“The house belongs to an artist named Kit Carson,” Brent said. “That’s really his name.”

Kit Carson is a well-known Arizona artist who sketches, paints, makes large sculptures out of rusted metal, and handcrafts jewelry. He moved to New River 25 years ago onto a 2-acre plot where he designed and built his stone house, complete with metal framing around interior windows and doors.

Brent, thrilled with his haul from yesterday (particularly the price) spreads his treasures over our dining room table. Some are pieces of Kit’s jewelry in various stages of completion which Brent plans to use in his own jewelry one day. His jewelry-making supplies are in his office closet and eventually he’ll bring them out, set them up and cast silver and gold pieces with inlaid stones.

“He’s having the yard sale all weekend,” Brent says. The way he describes Kit’s house and yard makes me want to go.

When we turn onto 20th Street, the big yard sale sign from yesterday is gone. We park at a trail head in front of Kit’s house, to keep his yard open, and find him on the front porch. Kit is tall and slender, wearing sunglasses and a hat against the determined morning sun as he organizes things.

“Your sign is gone,” Brent tells Kit.

“Really?” Kit says, “Hey, I recognize you from yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Brent says, “and I brought my wife this time.”

Kit’s friend Linda is coming over to help with the sale and he says he’ll wait until she gets there before replacing the sign. The missing sign is a great opportunity for us to take a very careful look around the yard before other people begin to arrive.

Kit’s house sits on the edge of his land facing Tonto National Forest, a glorious desert valley that rises up to tall mountains and plateaus as far as the eye can see. The house sits on a rise and across his yard is a half-round metal building looking like a military barracks, with a wood shelter built over the top, and barn doors that enclose the building. His workshop is in the barracks. Three feet from the workshop is an art studio with white walls and a large table down the center, a big picture window facing Tonto. Attached to the studio, and connected by a door, is a garage. The studio and garage have items for sale, but I’m more interested in the neglected antiques scattered about the grounds.

Kit recently sold his house because his “need to be in Prescott, his hometown, right now is more important than me being in New River.” When the house sold, he told the new owner he’d clean up the yard. Thus, the yard sale.

Kit will continue to make art in Prescott, and so he’s taking a lot of things with him. Those items are marked NFS (Not For Sale). Of course, they’re the pieces everyone wants!

I’m looking at auto parts when he opens an old Frigidaire next to me and says, “I think I want to keep this. Put in a couple of glass shelves and a light and it will make a great cabinet for storage.” It’s a fine old fridge with curved lines and a handle that works securely. The patina is perfect. I notice a $150 price tag. Not only does Kit keep finding things he wants to keep, he tells me he actually took a couple of things out of a customer’s hands the day before, refusing to sell them.

Obviously, even though he’s made the mental decision to move to Prescott, it’s emotionally hard to leave his custom-built home of 25 years.

In his 67 years, Kit collected metal pieces from everywhere he traveled. “Every piece you see out here,” Kit says, “I loaded into my Nissan truck from somewhere and hauled it here.” All over the yard, Kit has organized the pieces, mostly metal, into his “Library of Visual Solutions,” which includes gears of every size from every type of machine; automotive parts; discs from tractors; aluminum serving dishes; hubcaps; scrap metal; chunks of colored glass; drill bits; lighting fixtures, ceiling tiles; mid-century lawn chairs; oil cans and on and on.

Everything is old and covered in rust. I carefully go through boxes on the porch of the workshop then wander out back and spend the next two-and-a-half hours sifting through the Library of Visual Solutions. A nearby blooming Palo Verde has attracted so many bees, they provide a steady buzz as the sun warms the surrounding metal.

The weather is ideal for being outside on a Saturday morning. High of 78 and a breeze. I find a white box and stick in a tiny, old porcelain heater used for target practice. Then I find another tiny, porcelain heater, turquoise and not as beaten up. It still has the little door on hinges, though the door is rusted. Into the box it goes.

Here’s a wire light cover, and here’s a rusted oil can with no bottom. What about this metal dashboard with speedometer? Wonder what kind of car it’s from. Into the white box. Metal drawer pulls go in. A piece of rusted wood stove, two rusted ceiling tiles and a railroad lantern (unfortunately without the glass globe) go in.

‘These items, very farmhouse chic as popularized by Joanna and Chip Gaines, would sell so well on Etsy,’ I think. Maybe I should start an Etsy store as my cousin Sonua suggested. She thinks people would go crazy for photos of my cat in my miniature dollhouse. She’s probably right. Who doesn’t love a damn grown cat trying to fit into a miniature dollhouse? I could sell cats in dollhouses and rusted stuff.

“This is the light area,” Kit says, indicating the ground around him as he picks up a section of a mid-century modern floor lamp, the kind with cone-shaped light fixtures that can point up or down. “I used one of these fixtures on my outdoor shower. Go look in my backyard and check it out.”

Clearly, Kit has a sense of humor that comes across in his art. A toaster sculpture has a butter knife wedged into one slot. A giant tractor, at least 20 feet long and 7 feet wide, sitting in his front yard was bought by a client who lives in Cave Creek. She plans to place it between two large Saguaros in her yard. “There’s a tricycle on the very back,” I point out to Kit, “in case it’s not supposed to be there.”

“The tricycle goes on the very front of the rig,” Kit says, “to act as the new power source.”

I walk up to his house as suggested and admire the stone work. The deep porch faces Tonto National Forest and features old lantern lighting fixtures. He’s topped off his side banister rail with chunks of colored glass and laid tiles into the concrete walkway.

At the back door, which has a decorative, one-of-a-kind metal screen door, a vertical window is filled with colorful glass pieces. underneath the window, Kit randomly placed colored pieces of glass in the mortar between stones so it looks like they’re tumbling out of the window and onto the ground.

Next to the window is the outdoor shower with the lamp fixture over the shower head. In the back, over his patio, he’s welded gears and hubcaps and bicycle wheels to make an interesting eave. His house is his art. And his art is inspired by Spain’s Antoni Gaudi (that great architect of the La Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, Casa Vincens, etc., who believed in making things by hand, and using mosiacs) and Art Nouveau imagery.

As the white box fills up, I find a metal wire container that’s a prize in itself and begin filling it: six Japanese glass floats that Kit picked up on the beach near Homer, Alaska; a deep silver platter weighing a couple of pounds and tarnished black; a large brass bed knob; an acrylic drawer pull with brass fittings; a white enamel light fixture; two child’s chairs, rusted, which will make great plant stands once I replace the seat with mosaic tiles; several car taillights with real glass and metal casings; an antique refrigerator handle; a mid-century modern lamp once painted, now rusted but ready for re-wiring; and my favorite find, two cast aluminum sconces with scroll work fronts.

Etsy buyers would go nuts!

Linda arrives and begins helping. She’s very thin, a retired school teacher and friend of Kit who once rented Kit’s art studio for two years just to sit on the porch and gaze at theTonto National Forest. “He’s a very famous artist, you know,” Linda tells me. She points to a rust-covered lighting fixture Kit welded together with scroll work and a fleur de lis as centerpiece. The price is $575. “That’s a deal,” she says. “Some of his clients will pay up to $10,000 for a commissioned piece like that.”

Everything needs cleaning, but Brent cautions me to not clean too much for fear it would remove the gorgeous patina. “That’s why Kit has these things outside,” he says, “so they’ll rust, and so the bronze and copper pieces will turn. If you burnish too much, you burnish away what makes them valuable.”

I hold up a very heavy, rusted item that looks like a big, round microphone from the 1930s. “What’s this?” I ask. “That is a burner,” Brent says. “The gas goes in through here and the flames come out of these perforations.” It looks like a sculptural piece to me.

“Can I use your sandblaster to remove the rust? What will it look like?”

“Sandblasting will remove the rust and all you’ll see is the cast iron underneath. It’ll be gray.”

“Will this last a while or rust out?” I ask.

“That will outlast you,” Brent says. “That will out last you by five times.”

Brent and I daydream together sometimes, talking about one day building a greenhouse in the backyard with an attached She Shed for my writing space. He’s looking for fun pieces to display, and maybe even lighting fixtures to use in the greenhouse. The aluminum sconces I place in the wire basket will be perfect on either side of the She Shed door, inside or out.

After Kit runs up to 20th Street and Circle Mountain Road and re-posts his big yard sale sign, more and more people begin to stream in, heading into the art studio and garage, where Kit’s expensive art pieces are on display. Some men wonder out of doors through the Library of Visual Solutions, but most folks are inside missing the real show outside!

However, Kit is a musician, too, and his electric guitar is set up in his studio, so he turns it on and plays a little rock, the perfect background music for treasure hunting. So there really is a show inside, too!

Brent finds a gorgeous, handmade box, about 5 x 4 x 3, made with dove tail joints and pegs and solid-working brass hardware. He’s going through all the jewelry items again, which are mostly in tiny zip-lock bags, and puts his picks into the box. I see a hair barrette made of brass with a craved design and put it into Brent’s box. Then I find an intriguing brass circle and put it in there, too.

When Brent shows Kit the box, to settle on a price, Kit picks up the brass circle and says, “I cast that from a level case. Then I put the level it in, and attach the whole piece as a belt buckle. You can tell if you’re level.” He laughs. I like it, and knowing it’s his handiwork makes it more meaningful.

Brent takes the brass barrette out of the box and places it on the table, not realizing I had put it in there. Kit picks it up and says, “I made that when I was about 22 years old,” and he puts it back in Brent’s box. The barrette has a very delicate carving of twisting ribbon. Considering it a piece of art, I’m proud to have it.

As I’m taking one final look around, Kit comes over and shows me a small black plastic level, the type he used to cast the brass circle. And then he puts it into my hand and walks away.

We load our goodies in the truck and head south on 20th, bumping along on the dirt road listening to all the metal items clanging, moaning and squealing in the jostle. I feel like Granny sitting in her rocker on top of the Beverly Hillbillies truck crammed with their rustic possessions.

“Dang, Honey,” Brent says, “sounds like The Grape of Wrath in here,” and I can’t help but burst out laughing!

RESOURCES

• Kit Carson – Craft in America Video: http://www.craftinamerica.org/shorts/kit-carson-segment/. I really like this 7-minute video because we see New River. It’s shot in his yard and the Tonto National Forest, which is basically his front yard. Kit does a great job of explaining his inspirations and process. Views of his property show his Library of Visual Solutions, his stone house and workshop.

• Article published by True West Magazine: https://www.truewestmagazine.com/cactus-camp/
• www.kitcarsonjewelry.com