The sun’s barely up yet the farmer’s market already bustles. Although I’m early, other vendors have filled the best spots, the ones with road frontage, so I stake a claim around the bend. This February morning, fog rests heavy, saturating all with its wet chill. It takes me nearly a dozen trips to pull all my booth pieces from the Rav-4: tent, tables, cloths, bookstands, and the two heavy boxes of books. My fellow vendors gather to help raise the tent, and we gab, catching up on family and health news.
We’re an older crowd, retirees with time to devote to those passions we’ve postponed while the demands of work and family-raising exhausted both energy and time. The booths change every now and then, the honey-man from Lucedale stopped setting up, the Chinese vegetable-lady moved to a different market. New ones settle in to replace them.
Mary, a woman in a threadbare jacket, displays a hundred colorful caps she’s crocheted, many with animal or superhero themes. Annie, a sweet lady with perpetual smile, offers soy candles in a variety of colors and aromas. On the corner, Joe’s home-built bird houses wave in the gentle breeze.
Tig’s Fresh Baked Goodies draws a steady clientele, her sugary cookies, scrumptious pecan pies, and hearty bread loaves feed visitors and vendors alike. By noon she’ll be sold out. I buy a sesame roll, half price with the vendor discount.
It takes me forty-five minutes to set up my booth, my books displayed in categories. On one end sit the four non-fiction books: Mississippi histories, biographies, and memoirs. The collection of twenty-four biographies of Mississippians features a cover with the old stars and bars Mississippi flag, published before the flag controversy. It now solicits mixed reception. One African-American saw it on my table and turned her nose up, striding away with insulted pride. An older fellow with a MAGA hat purchased one for the nostalgia benefit.
Just across the path, old Frank leans on his cane, watching over his melted glass. Frank’s been out for two months, dealing with kidney failure, heart stents, and chronic lung disease. He hobbles over to talk about his latest medical adventures, rejoicing in being outside and feeling useful. His table features melted bottles collapsed into ashtrays, chunks of colors hanging from driftwood to make a mobile, clanking in the breezes, and lovely multi-colored brooches made by his granddaughter. A wonderful day of sales for him will be forty dollars.
Children books hold rein in the middle of my table, the “Princess” stories an attraction for adolescent and teenybopper girls. One little tyke proudly tells me she’s in third grade but reading at the fifth-grade level. I set my bestseller up front, the children’s photobook from the Galapagos Islands. Full of pictures of brightly colored lizards, birds, and a gigantic, green-shelled tortoise, schoolboys love to gawk at the wonders of weird creatures.
Kathleen paints caricatures of fish on fencing boards, six-foot long patio paintings that sell surprisingly well. Down the strip, Paul displays his pelican paintings. At $100 a pop he only needs to sell one or two to make the morning efforts worthwhile. A third painter, Sylvia, paints turtles on slate shingles. She’ll make three hundred dollars today.
My friend, tall and bald Robert, sets up next to me, displaying his sketched glass. His dangling Christian cross earring accents his scraggly white beard. Tattoos decorate both arms, giving the accurate impression of this being a rough and tough welder, whose soft side shows in the poetry book he wrote and proudly displays for sale.
Next on my table stand the three adult fiction books, the murder mystery, contemporary romance, and collection of medical short stories. On a pretty day like this I’ll sell three or four of those. I’m a multi-genre kind of guy, which makes it harder to build up a fan base, although I like to claim I have something for everyone.
Attracted by the row of tents, out-of-towners driving by stop to browse, Louisianans puttering along the beach road, snowbirds from the Midwest, perhaps shopping to fill up their second home. A scattering of locals out for a Saturday stroll wander by, often with dogs on leash. I have a few repeat customers.
“I loved this book,” says one blue-haired matron, picking up my murder mystery, and with a little encouragement I talk her into buying the contemporary novel. A nine-year-old scampers up to my booth, points to the “Zany Zombie” tome and calls out, “That book was awesome.” A fellow with an orange warning vest glances my way and says, “I don’t read.” I try to sell him an audiobook. No dice.
On the far end I have a rack of five-dollar books, seven 100-page novellas, including sci-fi, poetry, and a Bible book. These paperbacks curl in the humidity, later needing to be pressed back down. The bestseller here is the ghost story. “Hey, for five bucks, what can you lose?”
By noon even this February day begins to show its South Mississippi heat. It’s a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning, sitting in the shade of a park, watching the people wander by. Each sale is a boost to my ego. “Oh, they bought my book – they LIKE me.”
It takes twenty minutes to break down, put away the unsold books, drag the parts back to the car, everything carefully arranged in the hatchback like a Tetris puzzle. I’m home by one, where the French girlfriend has lunch ready.
“Good sales, Fee-leep?” she asks.
“I sold 13 books and gave away two. A hundred and sixty-three bucks.”
She claps her hands. “Magnifique! You buy me la broche in Zay-les, oui?”
Easy come, easy go.