Saturday afternoon in Batesville

It’s been about nine months since Maria last visited her all-time favorite fabric store, Marshall’s Dry Goods in Batesville, Ark., so we gassed up the Lexus and headed west around noon today.

Maria found some great stuff, including an enormous roll of batting. I poked around and amused myself with odds and ends like a surprising (to me, anyway) assortment of Elvis Presley fabrics.

We came away with renewed optimism that we actually can have a small business, buying great fabric at wholesale prices and reselling it online for a modest markup.

One of the women working there opined that really stupid people are making money doing it. Surely we could do well.

Once the car was loaded, we motored over to the west side of town to the banks of the White River and Josie’s, our favorite Batesville eatery.

Moments after our appetizer arrived, the Marshall’s clerk who had handled Maria’s order appeared at our table with the two quilts Maria had taken for color matching and inadvertently left at the store.

We had mentioned we were headed for Josie’s for a late lunch, so the woman was able to quickly track us down. Needless to say, we were dazzled by her dedication to customer service.