Excerpt from The Blue Glass Candy Jar

Florida, 1985

I sometimes wonder where the fickle winds of fate might have blown me, and where I might be today, had it not been for the blue glass candy jar. Today it rests on a well-dusted shelf, where the love of my life keeps it high above the reach of inquisitive hands. The afternoon sun slants through the blinds and intensifies its iridescent cobalt luster, pulling my attention from a pair of scampering squirrels in the oak tree outside, transporting me back to a time and place so far removed that events mingle with dreams, their edges evaporating before they can fully be recalled. Yet there stands the candy jar, tangible proof of all that transpired.

Carnival glass they call it today—a collector's item. But in 1927, we called it "crystal," because it was as close to the real thing as we ever expected to own.

Margaret has placed it between two Fostoria candlesticks whose worth would equal two months' pay in 1927 dollars, yet I wouldn't trade that blue glass candy jar for the Queen of England's collection of fine crystal. That jar holds my life, its failures and successes, and all the hopes and dreams that wedged their way in between.

Alabama 1927

"Mama," I screamed, running to the garden, letting the screen door slam behind me. "Mama, Uncle Shorty says there's a carnival in town, and he's gonna take me! Kin I go, Mama? Kin I, please?"

Mama put both hands on the top of the handle of the hoe and leaned her sparse weight against it before she answered me. "TJ, you know we don't have money to be wasted at some travelin' gypsy show."

"No, Mama. It's nothin' like that, honest! Uncle Shorty says it's a good, clean carnival. He says Sheriff Logan's checked out all the games, and everything's square and on the up-and-up. And Uncle Shorty's gonna pay my way in, so kin I go, Mama? Please say yes."

Mama took so long to answer that I turned dizzy just waiting to draw my next breath. Finally, she turned back to her work, and her words came out in rhythm with her hoe. "I reckon...if Shorty Smith...got nothin' better...to do with his money...than waste it on...a bunch o' gypsies...then I reckon...you might as well...go help him do it."