I have a friend named Mary, and we have been friends since our days at Anderson College. In 2008, she lived in Simpsonville, which is a town outside Greenville. The city of Greenville would say it was a suburb, but the town would take exception to that.
Mary lived in a gated community. I would go over there to watch football on her cable TV or just to hang out. She had a cat named Kit who I adored. Mary would say that Kit would go hide when strangers came over, but she would just hop up on the couch and watch TV with me. I guess I had a calming effect on her. Mary was a teacher. When she would leave for the day, she would put Animal Planet on the TV for Kit to watch and not be lonely. She may even play classical music for her. She seemed to like that.
Mary also introduced me to shopping on a budget, including at Big Lots. She was pretty frugal, and I became that way too. It was all about what was on sale, generic items, and bargains. She also knew that I was a big-time collector of pop culture. A friend of hers was going to open up a craft and handmade jewelry store in downtown Simpsonville. The downtown consisted of about three blocks with a railroad track running through the middle. She needed a partner, so Mary went in with her. I suggested that I could put in some of my autographed pictures of celebrities to bring in people. They both agreed.
The store had two rooms. The main room had the crafts and jewelry. The other room had my autographs. It couldn't be seen easily from the main room, so I would have to show the customers where it was. They were impressed with the selection from Dennis Hopper to Burt Lancaster to Gary Oldman and more. I also had a section of college football coaches. One was Mark Richt of Georgia. A lady bought that. The picture was inscribed to me. After she left, she came back later and asked if I had an autographed picture without "To Walter". I said no, and all sales were final. She took it back. Maybe she tried to erase the sharpie. Another picture I had was Rep. Joe Wilson from the House of Representatives. The mayor of Simpsonville came by and told me that he didn't know I was in Congress. I had to tell him that the picture was of Joe Wilson. He corrected his mistake. Joe Wilson doesn't look a thing like me.
The store was struggling, so we brought in artwork from a local painter. The location of the store was great. The people didn't come in. I tried to tell them that they needed to run a sale to get people in the door, but the other owner (not Mary) was reluctant to do that. The store eventually closed. I had pulled my autographs out, and they used the space for other things. I liked Simpsonville. I like small towns like that, even though everybody knows about you, and there are no secrets. I learned that, when I worked at White Oak. "Did you hear about..."?
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