Every summer as a kid, my brother Floyd and I used to go with my mom to various fairs "up North" in Northville, Wells, and Bannertown. These fairs were known as the "Do'ins" by all the locals. As my brother got older and did other things, it was just me and my mom.
My mom sold sterling silver jewelry and some costume jewelry and in addition to helping with that, my brother sold stretch bottles that he made with his "stretch bottle" machine. Kids (and adults) came and filled their bottles with colored sand and made cool designs in the bottle. I sold kids jewelry including rings, necklaces, and earrings that were mostly in the $1-$3 range. This is how we earned money for our school clothes each year. Sometimes her friends Paulette and Vivian would come and help as well.
One year, as we prepared for our trip to Wells, my mom was frantic as usual, trying to get everything in the car. It was always my job to bring the "juice." We had a square green cooler with a white lid that we filled with Kool-Aid so we stayed hydrated during the hot summer months. Since we were there to make money, we didn't want to spend money on any extras such as drinks and snacks. We were able to splurge once in a while but didn't want to "overdo" it. Once we finally packed everything in the car, we headed to our event and began setting up. It was always quite a workout loading and unloading the car. My mom got thirsty and asked for a drink of juice. As I went to the car, I realized that I had forgotten it! Uh oh! My mom was very unhappy with me and yelled at me for being so irresponsible. As you can imagine, I felt really bad and was also mad at her for being mad at me. Ha ha!
We made it through the day and as evening approached, it began to get chilly. I asked my mom where she had put the suitcase so I could grab a sweatshirt.(It was her job to put the suitcase in the car since she was the last to pack her things in the one suitcase we used to conserve space). She had a guilty look on her face as she realized that SHE forgot the suitcase. We had to go to Woolworth's 5 and Dime to buy clothes to get us through the weekend. We had a good laugh and many stories throughout the years about the "forgotten suitcase!" She never gave me a hard time about the juice again!
