Friday, August 7, 2020 Mantorville Musings

I met a friend for a picnic lunch yesterday in sweet little Mantorville, a small town about halfway between us. We had our lunch by the riverside and then decided to stroll around town a bit. The county courthouse sits up on a hill overlooking the city, a handsome sentinel, indeed.

We walked on and came upon a delightful tableau for a Little Free Library – so inviting!

Note the dragon on the top and all the lovely quotes about reading going around the box. We felt an immediate kindred spirit with the owner of this house, which only deepened when we saw this in their back yard:

A rabbit tea party!

One rabbit said to the other,
“Would you care for a spot of tea?”
“Why yes,” the other exclaimed,
“And please, with sugar lumps, three!”

By this time, we were becoming convinced that we could just walk into the house and have a nice chat with our new best friend – we thought there was a good chance that she (he?) would have welcomed us warmly. But niggling doubts kept us from committing what might instead have been a horrifying social faux pas. Our new friend also had a bird cage set up as a planter. Martha Stewart, move over!

The house next door was a Greek Renovation project of some sort – I didn’t get a photo of the house, but the grounds were filled with beautiful displays of flowers.

My friend stopped in at a shop to get some coffee while I stayed outside to take more photos, enjoying the creativity of people who know how to take plain and simple things and make them beautiful.

We spent some time talking about the virus – hard to avoid that topic these days. We had strong and differing opinions about the governmental response to COVID and had a civil discussion with an exchange of ideas. Neither of us experienced a shift in our stances, but we both appreciated the importance of hearing what the other had to say. If you don’t know someone that you love on the other side of an issue, you’re missing something essential in the conversation.

It was a lovely, pleasant afternoon and we felt quite welcomed by Mantorville. We’ll meet here again.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. I’ll be busier than usual next week, so I might revert to the Haiku O’ Day format that I’ve used before during busy stretches.