Clown Box

I have a story to tell....

To my credit or to my shame, it is a true story.

Daughter #2 (I have 4 daughters) and I needed to run in to town last Saturday early evening, for some nessessities for my son who had been released from the hospital only a week previous. While travelng from one store to the other we passed a small antique shop that I had been into a couple times since returning to Pennsylvania. Imagine my surprise to note that even though the shop was closed, some things were still outside...... and one of those things I recognized as a painting on a box that I had done many years ago for a man who did clown performances for children and for various organizations.

 I told her "I did that painting back there!!" as we went by.

A million thoughts flew through my head as my daughter asked, "Do you want me to drive around the block?" "Well, YES!!!" How did the box get into the hands of this antique dealer? what happened to the man I had painted it for? Was he still living? What about the clown suit and paraphernalia he had carried in it? I envisioned his passing, and an auction at the time, dispersing his belongings.

We pulled into the parking place near the old shop and went to look at it. I was estatic! Not that it was much of a painting, but that I reconnected with a part of my painting past. Cars came and went as we stood looking at it and wondering what to do.

The box was a bit dirty and the screws that held the rusty hinge attaching the lid were falling out. Yes, my name was on it as the artist and the date  '91!

Back side

We found a phone number on the sign that sat there as well. No answer. Had he closed down and just left these things outside??  Not like him to do that. Well, you certainly wouldn't leave your 'children' outside after dark would you? all weekend? to fend for themselves? what if it rained? Or someone bad came along and snatched them (it)?

I did the only thing I could think to do, and with honorable intentions, too!

I said, "Open the trunk".

Daughter, gasping, "Mom! Are you STEALING that????"

"No, dear, just borrowing, till Monday morning, keeping it from harm....."

Long story short my grown kids, upon hearing this, about coughed their cookies, and wondered if I'd lost it totally.

I went back Monday am 5 min. BEFORE the shop opened, and tenatively, and humbly told the shop owner my story, explaining that I had painted it in '91  ("you painted that??") and asked if he knew what had become of the man I had painted it for, which he did not. Anyways he let me buy the box with my painting on it for $25, chuckling about the situation.

Now it's not much, but it will have a place in MY home till my kids have to decide what to do with it. One thing I am sure of..... this story will be talked about at my passing, and much laughter to go with it.

Shall we dance?