Well, this is certainly an interesting picture. Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields who chose the photo and to Roger Bultot for submitting it to our Fairy Blog Mother.
We called you Big Stan the Pretzel Man. Not kindly. You didn’t seem to mind. You gifted us salted pretzels slathered with spicy yellow mustard and told stories about your grandma, cotton plantations, the hard times and the easier ones. We kids sat, picking scabs on our knees, gobbling pretzels, wanting to get away while our mother’s voices repeating, “Be polite to Stan” rattled around in our heads.
The day they found you beaten, your cart burned to a pile of twisted metal and exploded glass, we pretended we hadn’t seen anything and slowly drifted away.
Up From the Ashes 