I'M BAAAACK!!

Back from the mall art show! Egad! Living in a 6 x 9 space for 5 straight days, 10:00 in the a.m. to 9:30 at night! I will never find that easy, although I've been doing it since 1976. It has been interesting to watch how the world has changed. In 1976, I was all of 27 years old, and the world was "ours" at that time. Hippie-dippie madness abounded. Folks walking by the booth had long hair, bell-bottoms, and said things like "Far out!"  A  little later, the kids started looking like yuppies, with little alligators on their shirts; and eventually a Madonna influence worked its way in--kind of a bag lady style, to my eyes anyway. Somewhere along the way, tattoos and body piercings became the look which brings us to the present. I have just spent the last five days looking at tattoos, piercings and Gawd help me, the weather got warm, the bare midriff crowd came out. I walked around at the mall thinking, with my mind pointed in their direction, "PULL YOUR PANTS UP!" -- and that refers to both male and female.

The most remarkable change over the years is technology. In 1976, they wouldn't let us plug into the mall outlets. We  rolled a car battery in every show (on a little dolly) to have power for our lights. To pass the time, I read books, and getting in touch with me at the mall was impossible unless you wanted to go through the mall receptionist. If I wanted to call out, I used a pay phone. When the telephone company broke up, it was my personal crisis trying to phone home. The mall had a company I never heard of, and I never figured out how to make a call outside of their system. Stuck within their walls!  I felt like I was behind the Iron Curtain. (Now there's a memory I'm glad we have a happy ending about--the Iron Curtain--NO, Youngsters, that's not an old-fashioned rock group.)

Now, it is easier to count the people without cell phones stuck to their ears, than with. To be honest, that hurts business--they used to be free to browse my photographs; now they're yakking on the phone, but I digress...I guess I like the way things are now. Many tasks are easier. If I had told you in 1976 that instead of reading, I was typing into an electronic keyboard at the show, to take home to upload to my personal computer...well, that wouldn't have made any sense at all. Those old days seem so backward now...