my destiny...

This sign stood in front of the most elegant of women's specialty shops from my grandmother's generation in Midtown Memphis, TN for many a decade. It closed when I was a small girl in the 1980's, and I was certain that one day I would buy the beautiful coral colored building and reopen the shop. My name is Helen. I am from Memphis. It seemed perfect! The building stood vacant throughout my youth, but by the time I got to high school, my hopes seemed dashed when the building was razed to make room for an ugly, inelegant concrete box of a Rite Aid. I was crushed.

I was studying in my second floor bedroom on the back of my parents house one night, I think it was the night before the scheduled demolition, when I heard rocks being thrown at my bedroom window. Who could be pelting rocks up! And aren't those ADULT's voices calling my name?? Peeking out of the window, I saw a most amazing sight. My father and three of his friends were holding this sign up and yelling "Oh Helen of Memphis!! Look what we got for you!!" They had liberated the sign by cover of darkness and transported it by pickup truck! It has been there since. One day, inevitably, the sign will make a trek to Upstate New York to live outside my home and art studio. Not how I imagined it at age 9, but my destiny has been fulfilled. The building is long gone, the sign faded and weathered, but I have opened the Helen of Memphis!! Come by the Etsy shop to see my handmade goods, and come on back to the blog often and set a spell with me while I spin a good yarn.