 | |
| Lori and Amanda, 9 years old |
today’s blog…
…from underneath the biggest pile of infinity…
This might be long.
Flashback: 1980
It was May. I had just turned five in my March, and my only sibling, Alanna (no, not Atlanta, there is no “T”, and it rhymes with banana), was eight. We had a mom and a dad. We still have a mom and a dad. The same ones. Their names are Wanda and Norman.
They were opening the door to their new business, “A & A Pizza”. Dad wanted to call it “Wicked Wanda’s”. Or at least he liked to tease her about it. It was an exciting time.
“The shop” was in Hampden, Maine. The same town where we resided. I don’t know how many people lived here in 1980 but I just got sidetracked for almost 20 minutes when I got online to find out but there are like 4,000 people here now so in 1980… a lot less. I would give you the racial demographic breakdown but I prefer to see people as one race
…human.
The building where the Shop was located was right next to the highschool and across the street from the middle and elementary schools. There was a grocery store, a pharmacy, O’Mart & Hinkley which we proudly called O’Fart & Stinkly. They sold “Stix”. I can remember exactly what it is like to unwrap a Stix. They were a long, flat, hard candy. And they were very fruity and delicious. I believe for 10 cents. That was a splurge, considering you could buy TEN DIFFERENT pieces of at Quick Pick, just a short walk down Main Road. And that could be any ratio of variety within that 10 pieces of candy. That was huge.
Stix lasted for a long time too. I look back now and I see a Jolly Rancher, flattened, as if it had been rolled out like cookie dough…the long way only. A long, flat, 4.5+/- inches, usually reddish, hard candy…
…wrapped heaven. I could still talk about Stix for an hour. Oh, the way you could shape them with your mouth, and make them curl on the end (flexibility dependent on amount and duration time of suckage – it’s a science, really) and then wait for it to harden up so you could bite off the curl and I –
So that was the pharmacy, which was next to the Grocery Store, Loundsbury’s, as the big “anchor store” on the end. On the other side of O’Fart & Stinkly was us, A&A Pizza, and then on the other side of us, the end of the shopping center, was Schacht’s True Value Hardware Store. All four stores were small, family owned business. We were the only pizza place in town, I think for about eight or nine years.
The family that owned the Hardware store had two girls as well, same ages as my sister and me, and eventually, shortly after we opened the Shop, they welcomed their final member, a son.
 |
| I wish I had a real photo from 1980 but I have yet to find one... |
Lori was the other 5 year old in the Schacht family. She had just had a birthday too, 20 days after mine. We were instantly friends.
I think.
I was 5, how am I supposed to remember if it was instant? I have no clue. But I do know that it wasn’t long. What I do know is that she was my childhood co-pilot.
And it was awesome.
Naturally, in family owned business (or successful ones, at least), both Lori’s parents and my parents worked for the reputations they built. They worked their asses off. I respect that now so much about both of our families. Fully dedicated workhorses. People still talk about my mom’s pizza and subs.
They really were the best ever.
 |
| mom, hard at work sometime in the 80s! |
Lori and I grew up between the two stores and the immediately surrounding areas of town, tons of adventures and fun, good food, creative mom’s, sleepovers, playing in the street, hoarding penny candy and riding our bikes thousands of miles, sometimes all day, sleeping in the camper or tenting out on summer nights, ice skating on the pond out back in the winters, building forts and decorating them with dreams as we journeyed through the woods behind my house to the edge of the earth where we danced.
Makes me cry like a baby, I’m such a wuss. But seriously, what a world to be a kid in… awesome parents, small town, playing outside till your parents forced you to come inside and bathe your filthy dirty, Maine summer-soiled feet. I moved home as a grown up for the soul hope of raising my own child with the same appreciation and the same GIFT as a Maine childhood, and then to fill it with parents and grandparents like mine, a sister who is my best friend, and the things in life that MATTER.
I don’t really know why I’m trying to translate the feeling to something as trite as a sentence, because I will never do it any justice.
(insert distraction)
(insert another distraction)
Lori and I stayed friends always, but amicably went down different social avenues in high school and after high school, I don’t recall seeing her for many many years…
My parents sold A&A Pizza 11 years after they had opened. I was a sophomore in high school. With the exception of:
ü taking me and Alanna on vacation, camping, to Prince Edward Island, one of us throwing up on them
ü one of us needing or just wanting their mom or dad
ü attending EVERY. SINGLE. SOLITARY. game, meet, banquet, presentation, kindergarten parent day when I was 5 and National Honor Society when I was 17 (insert plug that I was smart). . (gymnastics, basketball, diving, band, soccer, field hockey, cheering, ceremonies, every single other thing we ever did)
ü they were half dead
… with the exception of those circumstances (shut up I know I already said it, it was a refresher), my parents were working with the intention of giving me a great life.
The guy that bought the Shop didn’t stay open long after he purchased it from my parents.
He changed the recipes.
Other pizza places started coming to town.
Small town.
You know the rest.
Sometime after the space was empty where A&A Pizza used to sit, Schacht’s, still owned and operated by Lori’s parents, had added more to their store, including Gifts and Paint. They cut through the wall to the Shop, and built their current Paint Shop, and then used space out back for their offices, etc. It has been that way ever since.
 |
| current view, taken in the summer of 2011 |
I think maybe around the age of 6 or 7 I had a Kodak Disc Camera. It was my first camera. #random
Cut to 2005 (I think):
I move home. Married.
See Lori at her store. Super fun. She’s married with THREE LITTLE GIRLS! The husbands meet, there are a couple social occasions, dinner and such.
I was appraising real estate, a license I’d transferred to Maine when I moved. I dreamed of being a photographer…
Cut to 2005 ½ : Divorced.
Haha. Just kidding. It wasn’t that fast but I love to exaggerate.
Ashton was born January 3, 2006. I was still married.
Then I got divorced.
Ashton and I lived at Lori’s for a while. Best time ever, watching our kids play together, picking up as if the 12 years between us hadn’t even occurred.
It was fun. A couple years passed very quickly; sometimes complicated, emotional years, without which we would never have become what we are today. Another bond I won’t bother trying to explain.
Ashton I lived with my mom and dad a while, with the added luxury of watching him as a 3 year old, running up the hill behind the house, on the driveway that leads to my Nanie and Grampie’s house during the warm Maine months. My Grampie passed away last October. Ashton had a special relationship with him. He still has one now with Nanie. Just makes the whole story mean so much more to me. It’s no wonder why Ashton is so tight with them as we live down the driveway, but I prefer to tell people that it’s really because I’m the favorite grandchild, thus I automatically give birth the favorite great-grandchild, so you can believe that to be true because I said so.
My amazing parents supported me taking a leap of faith into my own photography business. I opened a studio in Orono. I was so scared to unlock the door that I didn’t.
For like…a year?
Seriously.
It’s been about two years since I opened. And if you have read any posts from the beginning, you know that the only reason I opened to door is because Jenny made me. Thank you, Jenny.
Lori, now with FOUR daughters, runs the same, successful business in Hampden with her Dad. She has an eye like her mom’s, trained through years of watching the magic happen. The Gift Shop is well known, and is the destination for many who come to Hampden. If you’ve never been there, you need to go.
Two weeks ago, Lori is standing in my kitchen on the other side of counter from me, and we’re chatting about whatever. The point is, she had been there for more than 11 seconds and had saved this “thought” that she had the day before to tell me until at least 15 minutes had passed.
“What would you think… (looking around, wiggling her foot, TRYing not to make eye contact) …about moving the studio into the Paint Shop?”
Cut to right now. It’s 11:30pm, I’m sitting in the middle of the almost empty Paint Shop.
 |
| real time |
The new Paint Shop area in the big part of he Hardware store looks fantastic. You should see it.
This is happening.
A&A Pizza is about to become amanda prouty photography.
Next to my first buddy.
We’ll watch our kids play here…with Jenny’s kids.
I’ll continue to dream of a sustainable business that provides me with enough to feed and cloth my child and give him all that his he desires and any education that he chooses to have. Although there are many things that are free like love, and family, leadership and friendship, there are also many things that cannot be purchased. You can’t buy time, you can’t buy love, and you can’t buy second chances. Photographs are so important that way. You can only get it once. Then it's a part of your history...
...a page in your story.
(sidetracked)
I eventually want to be able to do projects and raise money for charities.
I want to make statements.
I want to make people think, feel, look inside themselves, look outside the box, learn, scream, stand up, fight, BE somebody, repreSENT!
I want you to love the time you spend with us and the photos we create for you. I want to be somebody different.
“don’t be regular”
My house is down the street, across from my parents.
My two bffs who, aside from my family, have been my greatest supporters in this business venture of mine; my motivators, my mentors, my confidants, and my army. They are also the two people with whom I do most of what I consider to be life’s greatest treasures…
…sing. dance. and most importantly, laugh…
…throw in the best kid ever, all seven of my personalities, a camera, and the 360 at one of my life’s circles…
…that’s where we’ll be.
March 1st, 2012.
*** warning: I don’t proofread blog entries. it is what it is. real.
