Bill and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day. We have never properly observed this particular holiday…well…we did once…23 years ago. While our memories of this fateful day are completely different vary just a bit, apparently it involved some rant on my part (say it ain’t so) about commercializing love, delusional expectations and exploiting a woman’s insecurities.
I know, I know…I groan as well looking back on my 22-year-old self for a variety of reasons (think of an even more absurd version of my current self…now, think of an even more absurd quasi adult and my 22-year-old Shannen starts to come into focus). Give me a break please…I was in college. I was in Athens, Georgia. I was in the Journalism College. I worked for the art paper…in Athens, Georgia while studying journalism…this response was completely clichéd and expected rational given those circumstances.
However, Bill refuses to let me forget how stupid I was we continue to ignore Valentine’s Day year after year even if I want those new boots for a present have grown immensely. In our defense, We honestly don’t need any one day of the year to celebrate love.
Wait for it…
Get ready to groan boorishly…
We celebrate our love every day. We don’t need a special day to single each other out. We say it, show it and feel it every day.
Okay…sorry…exhale…
However, except for my family and like 2 other people…ever…and the random dog…I personally do not show love to anyone else. I feel it but do not express it. And I don’t feel like that’s a detriment…just a “quirk”. Or so I’ve been told.
But this year is different!
This year I am DRIPPING with LOVE. This year my self proclaimed Valentine is Blue Ridge, Georgia…more specifically Main Street. Okay, a paved surface is a relatively inanimate object but it’s a start.
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The back of our building on Main…below is the view from my office. See the bucket truck in the background? This random moment was captured when our sign was being installed…
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Like any love story, the affection I feel for beloved Main Street has grown over the years. When we moved Oyster “on the Main”, I found myself unexpectedly caught in a deluge of memories from my childhood.
♥
Typically, I grew up visiting the North Georgia Mountains on vacation to escape the Atlanta suburb’s lunacy “hustle and bustle”. My childhood was scattered with countless weekends “looking at the leaves” in the back seat of our family station wagon listening to my father ramble on and on about wanting to be a forest ranger John Denver and Willie Nelson music all while my father made long term plans to “leave it all behind” and “live in the mountains one day”.
Fast forward decades…it’s 2008 and I am pregnant with Veronica. The recession is in FULL swing and Bill impulsively decided we meticulously thought out our next preposterous logical move to Main Street. After almost 12 years as a home based business, we opened our bamboo fly rod making shop in a fishbowl proper retail setting.
Think Mayberry with churches and beer.
These few downtown blocks that encompass Main Street are genuinely and organically old school in terms of community. We have found ourselves joyfully content within a square mile. Seriously…we can walk to everything.
We walk the kids to school.
Bill started Blue Ridge’s first chess club
The Chess Club grew so much…that we had to recruit Riley to teach…of course!
We eat our meals, pick up our prescriptions and dry cleaning, visit our doctors and dentist, go to CrossFit, play on the playground and buy just about anything you can imagine that a tourist town has to offer within this city block. And, while the shops and restaurants are obviously our main attraction, the people are undoubtedly the covert vibe that you feel…
We CrossFit…and make our coach and dear friend Robbie run with Roni!
Every holiday is honored.
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| Parades for….well…everything on Main! |
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| So Merry |
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| Main Street and our wild Halloween |
Our fishbowl
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| Tiny dancer…and bubbles |
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Visiting dogs…this one is named Oyster! 🙂
Of course…bamboo fly rods |
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Another unexpected improvement in our lives upon moving here is the small talk…or lack there of…
Let me explain. EVERYWHERE we go outside of this bubble, we get blank stares, awkward head tilts and even chuckles when people inevitably ask us “what we do” and “where we live”.
It’s different for shop owners and their trusted employees… we don’t have to spend our first dozen conversations (if it ever gets to that) explaining the intricacies of entrepreneurship, impossibly long hours and living in a bubble.
Once our “career path choice” or lack there of is ingested by the morbidly curious, there is usually a barrage of innocent enough comments and questions:
1. Wow! That is really cool. I really want to start my own business too. How long did it take you to save enough cash to fall back on if it does not work out?
Ummm…I’ll let you know when that happens. (see necessity is the mother of invention proverb)
2. Your hours must be so flexible.
If by flexible, you mean having the ability to work all of your waking hours…then yes…super flexible
3. Did you study this in school? Do you have investors? Is your Dad rich?
No.
4. If Bill can not engrave because he is hurt, traveling, sick…etc…who do you get to engrave your rods?
The engraving fairy! Just kidding. If Bill can not engrave…our wait list gets even longer…
5. You can’t ever get fired!
True…except that time I fired myself by text (long story). I went in for rehire a day later.
6. Who is your IT department?
Me.
7. Who does the finances?
Me.
8. Who does the marketing?
Me.
9. Who is your … ?
One of the three of us…Period.
10. It’s just business, right.
No. It’s all personal. If it was “just business”, our end game would be money over lifestyle. We love it that’s why we do it.
We do not own these questions. Each shop has their own adaptation. It is comforting to have people right outside your door that share your same unique perspective on our life’s ludicrous events. It’s lovely to have the luxury of eliminating the niceties and sincerely connect when we get a spare moment (not many of those…see #2). It’s understood. It’s our own mysterious hamlet.
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| Have chess…will follow. Chesters. 🙂 |
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| Church |
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| Father and Danny…Masseria…more church |
Baby sitting services at the Blue Ridge Brewery
My Main Street. My Valentine.
My original intension was to single out those who have become like family and write some version of “roses are red” to each and every one but I am afraid that that’s nearly impossible. I honestly have such strong feelings for these people that words are inadequate.
You all know who you are…
I must make the disclosure that our town’s undertow is strong…nothing is perfect. However…and maybe I am just in a good mood or delusional…I believe conflict is necessary to stay a veritable entity. We are all bound daily by joy, tenacity and random bouts of grief.
Moving Oyster’s bamboo fly rod making shop to
Main Street was strictly a business decision.
Staying on Main Street is entirely personal.
These are my people.
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| I look so tired because this one (Quinn) wears me out. Thank you. |
