Pumpkins & Books Oct 2021

Pumpkins: Wearing a Simpsons face mask, a young storyteller lingers by my table. “What’s this?” he says. I ask if he has a story about the market he wants to share. He says he’ll think about it and come back. And he does! “I have a story about food,” he says. A story about empanadas. He loves the empanadas from DMV Empanadas! There’s always such a long line. He comes for the people, too. His mom works for Farmer Billy at Caulk's Farm. Throughout the day, I see this boy wandering around and chatting…growing up at the market. My boss Miranda at Farm to Face, her child grew up at the market, climbing the trees while Miranda fried falafel. One of the market masters Harry has been coming to the market since he could sit on his dad’s shoulders.

Books: When this storyteller was retiring from her job as a librarian, she was giving away some of her books. She thought it was appropriate to gift her books about pumpkins to Farmer Billy, the "Pumpkin Man"…maybe he could give the books to his grandkids? Well, Farmer Billy doesn’t have grandkids, but some of his helpers, like the Simpsons boy's mom, have kids. So the Simpsons boy ended up with the pumpkin book. Now this retired librarian and he swap jokes every week. She gave him a big book of jokes for his birthday just last week. In her hand, she holds his Story Seed.