{"id":894,"date":"2010-09-08T22:32:20","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T05:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/?p=894"},"modified":"2010-09-08T23:30:51","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T06:30:51","slug":"the-value-of-a-good-stick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/09\/the-value-of-a-good-stick\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of a Good Stick"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past weekend I was exhibiting the photos once again at my local farmer’s market. It was a beautiful day, sunny, mild temperatures and plenty of people. My neighbor was a wood crafter who made various items from turned wooden pens to pepper grinders to these exquisite canes and walking sticks made out of various woods like hickory, oak, and laminates of exotic woods.<\/p>\n

We both sat around for most of the day not making many sales at all, but all the while both he and I entertained our visitors with anecdotes about how we made the items we did. Many would come through my booth commenting on how great the photos were and then wish they had “wall space”. For my neighbor, his visitors, after eying and even handling some of the canes and sticks, would simply say ” I am not ready for cane just yet”, even though some clearly were as they limped away.<\/p>\n

One of my long time patrons, Shirley – a lovely elderly woman who is, or maybe I should say was, an owner of a Museum Series sized After The Rain<\/a>, came in and informed me that her house and everything in it had burned to the ground! \u00a0She did not live very far from my home studio and about three weeks ago, one morning I heard a cadre of sirens from various trucks and emergency vehicles. \u00a0I wondered what they could have all been rushing to. \u00a0Well I found out – it was Shirley’s home. \u00a0Fortunately\u00a0she had been out that morning\u00a0walking\u00a0her dog and was not\u00a0home\u00a0when the fire started. \u00a0The authorities are\u00a0still not\u00a0sure what could have started the fire, but they are pretty sure it started in the garage, as Shirley related, and they are suspecting the batteries in her hybrid car, which of course is no more either. \u00a0Shirley,\u00a0thank God\u00a0is fine and is staying with a friend until everything is sorted out. \u00a0But she came to realize just how precious life is and she kept reiterating that to me to make sure that I understood that. \u00a0Thanks for the reminder Shirley, it is understood.<\/p>\n

So as the day came to a close, one patron enters my booth whom I had\u00a0spoken\u00a0to a few weeks before. \u00a0She and her husband were interested in No More Words<\/a> and I had offered to them the option of borrowing the photo for a week to try it out in their home. \u00a0At first I think they were taken aback by such an offer, and said they would think about it. \u00a0Well she came back to take me up on that offer, and told me that they have not stopped thinking about that photo. \u00a0She is borrowing it and has a few more days to decide. \u00a0Lets hope.<\/p>\n

When that transaction was over, the market manager came up to my neighbor’s booth, the wood crafter, and pulled out one of the smoothly sanded, finished hickory walking sticks. Grabbed it by his right hand, put some weight on it, then pulled out a couple of twenties from his pocket handed to my neighbor and with a great big smile on his face passed me by way of the back side of our booths. \u00a0All of this without nearly any hesitation on the manager’s part. \u00a0As he passed me I said, “You got yourself a really good stick”. \u00a0To which he replied “Yup I sure have!” and he walked down the street stick in tow.<\/p>\n

When we value something it is of little importance how much it “costs”. \u00a0In fact when we value something it is really priceless. \u00a0Shirley learned the value of life – and that should go without saying as a price cannot be put on life – for it is far to precious. \u00a0My patron found solace in the photo No More Words<\/a> and took up a no cost offer to enjoy the photo for at least a week, before making the decision of whether or not it is\u00a0worth in value\u00a0what I ask for it in price. \u00a0And the market manager found great value in that good stick, a stick, a piece of wood that one could\u00a0pick\u00a0up for no cost in the forest, but one that would not be as handsome or as useful as the one he bought for a couple of pieces of paper.<\/p>\n

Find what you value, whatever it is that enriches your life in some way and then really value it,\u00a0consciencely and I am sure that you will find it worth much more than you ever paid for it.<\/p>\n

\"Tidy

Value is Hard To Find<\/p><\/div>\n

Peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we value something it is of little importance how much it “costs”. In fact when we value something it is really priceless. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[10],"tags":[54,316,315],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":902,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organiclightphoto.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}