WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.870 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.870 --> 00:00:02.940 align:middle line:84% Can we just let Molly keep talking about me? 00:00:02.940 --> 00:00:06.870 align:middle line:90% I really like that a lot better. 00:00:06.870 --> 00:00:10.920 align:middle line:84% I have so many things to say, and I just 00:00:10.920 --> 00:00:13.260 align:middle line:84% have to do that before I read you my little story. 00:00:13.260 --> 00:00:18.240 align:middle line:84% Because I came here at the kind invitation of Richard and Lois 00:00:18.240 --> 00:00:22.410 align:middle line:84% Shelton, 26 years ago, for the first time as a poet actually. 00:00:22.410 --> 00:00:24.630 align:middle line:84% It was the first time I was invited anywhere 00:00:24.630 --> 00:00:26.610 align:middle line:84% to read my work, and I was so frightened. 00:00:26.610 --> 00:00:28.740 align:middle line:84% And I was treated so beautifully, 00:00:28.740 --> 00:00:31.320 align:middle line:84% and it means a lot to me to be back here again. 00:00:31.320 --> 00:00:33.760 align:middle line:84% And I have very, very close friends here, 00:00:33.760 --> 00:00:35.910 align:middle line:84% including my dear, Cynthia Keyworth, 00:00:35.910 --> 00:00:39.970 align:middle line:84% who we went to graduate school together at Iowa. 00:00:39.970 --> 00:00:40.680 align:middle line:90% She's come. 00:00:40.680 --> 00:00:44.080 align:middle line:84% And, of course, Alison Deming and Fenton Johnson, 00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:48.390 align:middle line:84% who are colleagues I admire, and cherish, and require. 00:00:48.390 --> 00:00:50.460 align:middle line:84% And I pretty well decided that they're 00:00:50.460 --> 00:00:53.910 align:middle line:84% going to have to get the firemen to get me out 00:00:53.910 --> 00:00:55.560 align:middle line:90% of my place at the Adobe Rose. 00:00:55.560 --> 00:00:56.260 align:middle line:90% I like it here. 00:00:56.260 --> 00:00:59.000 align:middle line:90% I'm not going. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:00.840 align:middle line:84% I'm really happy to be here, and I'm 00:01:00.840 --> 00:01:03.990 align:middle line:84% going to read to you a chapter probably 00:01:03.990 --> 00:01:07.890 align:middle line:84% unwisely but from the middle of the memoir 00:01:07.890 --> 00:01:12.000 align:middle line:84% that's coming out next year called The Florist's Daughter. 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:16.320 align:middle line:84% And I think all I need to tell you about this really 00:01:16.320 --> 00:01:21.660 align:middle line:84% is that this is about the downtown store of where 00:01:21.660 --> 00:01:24.060 align:middle line:84% my dad worked, the flower shop my dad worked in, 00:01:24.060 --> 00:01:26.520 align:middle line:84% and there's also reference to a greenhouse, which 00:01:26.520 --> 00:01:29.460 align:middle line:84% is in a different location near the Czech neighborhood, working 00:01:29.460 --> 00:01:33.150 align:middle line:84% class neighborhood, where I was born. 00:01:33.150 --> 00:01:36.480 align:middle line:84% My mother figures here, and at one point, 00:01:36.480 --> 00:01:42.420 align:middle line:84% she always read the astrology thing in the morning to us. 00:01:42.420 --> 00:01:47.340 align:middle line:84% And as a Pisces, I always had a very disappointing kind 00:01:47.340 --> 00:01:52.900 align:middle line:84% of passive, indecisive, obscure kind of thing. 00:01:52.900 --> 00:01:55.410 align:middle line:84% And she would often say, ah, too bad, 00:01:55.410 --> 00:01:57.930 align:middle line:84% but she always read my father's and my brothers'. 00:01:57.930 --> 00:02:03.070 align:middle line:84% They were the bull as men should be, and she was Leo the lion. 00:02:03.070 --> 00:02:07.560 align:middle line:84% So she's referred to by that, so this is chapter 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:11.070 align:middle line:90% five of the Florist's Daughter. 00:02:11.070 --> 00:02:14.820 align:middle line:84% Just like downtown, my aunt Lillian 00:02:14.820 --> 00:02:17.700 align:middle line:84% said of anything so marvelous, so 00:02:17.700 --> 00:02:21.090 align:middle line:84% looks that it descriptive requirements billowed 00:02:21.090 --> 00:02:23.790 align:middle line:90% beyond mere superlatives. 00:02:23.790 --> 00:02:26.550 align:middle line:84% Just like downtown, something really wonderful 00:02:26.550 --> 00:02:29.820 align:middle line:84% had to be awarded high end real estate. 00:02:29.820 --> 00:02:33.030 align:middle line:84% My agoraphobic aunt who never left home 00:02:33.030 --> 00:02:36.750 align:middle line:84% gave us what became our family's paradisal metaphor. 00:02:36.750 --> 00:02:40.890 align:middle line:84% Just like downtown, a curious figure of speech for a woman 00:02:40.890 --> 00:02:42.810 align:middle line:84% terrified of leaving the house, but just 00:02:42.810 --> 00:02:47.580 align:middle line:84% right for the yearning and the provincial heart. 00:02:47.580 --> 00:02:51.030 align:middle line:84% The flower company's retail shop at Fifth and St. Peter 00:02:51.030 --> 00:02:55.140 align:middle line:84% did exist in a zone of glamor, except it wasn't just 00:02:55.140 --> 00:02:55.890 align:middle line:90% like downtown. 00:02:55.890 --> 00:03:00.420 align:middle line:84% It was downtown a world away from the workaday greenhouse 00:03:00.420 --> 00:03:02.790 align:middle line:84% on Banville Street near the immigrant houses 00:03:02.790 --> 00:03:04.680 align:middle line:90% and their cottage gardens. 00:03:04.680 --> 00:03:09.660 align:middle line:84% The store's big windows and displays changed by my father 00:03:09.660 --> 00:03:12.840 align:middle line:84% by the month or to suit the season weren't in St. Paul 00:03:12.840 --> 00:03:17.460 align:middle line:84% as we were in St. Paul and as the greenhouse was in St. Paul. 00:03:17.460 --> 00:03:22.260 align:middle line:84% The downtown store conveyed a fugitive air of New York, maybe 00:03:22.260 --> 00:03:24.900 align:middle line:84% even Paris that had strayed somehow 00:03:24.900 --> 00:03:28.620 align:middle line:84% to the block of shops curving past the St. Paul Hotel. 00:03:28.620 --> 00:03:32.790 align:middle line:84% It was directly across the street from Bullard's Jewelers 00:03:32.790 --> 00:03:34.530 align:middle line:84% whose haughty display windows were 00:03:34.530 --> 00:03:38.670 align:middle line:84% small peepholes that enticed, and yet, kept you at bay. 00:03:38.670 --> 00:03:44.040 align:middle line:84% Bullard's was like church, hushed, mysterious, trafficking 00:03:44.040 --> 00:03:46.200 align:middle line:90% in jewels and sterling silver. 00:03:46.200 --> 00:03:48.540 align:middle line:84% There were emblems of the metaphysical. 00:03:48.540 --> 00:03:51.300 align:middle line:84% You couldn't imagine shopping at Bullard's. 00:03:51.300 --> 00:03:54.060 align:middle line:84% At least, a person could buy a rose now and again. 00:03:54.060 --> 00:03:56.460 align:middle line:84% So the flower shop for all its salon 00:03:56.460 --> 00:03:59.280 align:middle line:84% was not unapproachable, like Bullard's were. 00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:02.490 align:middle line:84% Every night, the riches were squirreled away in vaults, 00:04:02.490 --> 00:04:04.320 align:middle line:90% like money in a bank. 00:04:04.320 --> 00:04:07.320 align:middle line:84% At closing time, the little squares of the Bullard windows 00:04:07.320 --> 00:04:08.640 align:middle line:90% were emptied. 00:04:08.640 --> 00:04:10.680 align:middle line:84% Next door to Bullard's was Gokey's. 00:04:10.680 --> 00:04:13.920 align:middle line:84% Here, Theodore Roosevelt and Ernest Hemingway 00:04:13.920 --> 00:04:16.829 align:middle line:84% had ordered their bottes sauvages, the knee 00:04:16.829 --> 00:04:21.899 align:middle line:84% high snakebite resistant boots worn by knowing men of action. 00:04:21.899 --> 00:04:24.090 align:middle line:84% From here, the likewise celebrated 00:04:24.090 --> 00:04:28.350 align:middle line:84% Gokey's Indian dressing was sent around the globe 00:04:28.350 --> 00:04:30.600 align:middle line:84% to those wishing to protect their leather 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:34.800 align:middle line:84% goods from the dryness of deserts or the rot of jungles. 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:37.110 align:middle line:84% Gokey's is international, my mother 00:04:37.110 --> 00:04:40.770 align:middle line:84% said with rare earnestness, indicating a step well 00:04:40.770 --> 00:04:42.540 align:middle line:90% beyond downtown. 00:04:42.540 --> 00:04:45.060 align:middle line:84% She never said anything was just like downtown. 00:04:45.060 --> 00:04:47.550 align:middle line:90% To her, a moronic remark. 00:04:47.550 --> 00:04:51.420 align:middle line:84% She considered my aunt a silly woman, though, a good cook. 00:04:51.420 --> 00:04:55.020 align:middle line:84% Well, that's all she does, Leo the lion pronounced. 00:04:55.020 --> 00:04:56.970 align:middle line:90% She never leaves the house. 00:04:56.970 --> 00:04:58.705 align:middle line:84% With all that time on my aunt's hands, 00:04:58.705 --> 00:05:00.330 align:middle line:84% my mother couldn't see why she couldn't 00:05:00.330 --> 00:05:02.040 align:middle line:90% read a book now and again. 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:03.990 align:middle line:84% Your aunt's not much of a reader, 00:05:03.990 --> 00:05:07.250 align:middle line:90% she said, a final judgment.