Mr. Basket Maker Speaks: 1st Basket Workshop since Covid-19

For the past eight years now, I have been venturing to St. Louis in the month of May. Traveling to teach a four-day workshop for my host and friend, Mr. Tony Stubblefield— and his most loyal students. Located in a historic area, close to what is called the Hill, it has always been one of the workshops I look forward to the most.

When this class became threatened, and possibly not happen due to what I now call 2020 the lost year, we began to discuss what to do. This was back a few months ago. Understand that this workshop was scheduled a year prior and students have had the dates marked down to return for a long time. Then the “S” hit the fan. Tony and I continuously moderated the situation. In early March, workshops were getting cancelled in rapid fire. Tony’s was at the end of May. What were we to do? We decided to wait a bit to see how things played out. 

There are people with a passion for their hobby. My people’s passion is basket making and they sign up for workshops a year ahead—sometimes a two years ahead! And this was being taken all away from basket makers around the country. As time went on, we lost some students through attrition, which actually worked out to our advantage. If we are going to have a safe workshop, we will need to keep the number of students down. We started to believe that we can do this. Tony asked if this was something I would do and I said “I don’t care if the class is half of what it usually is, it’s more important that we do it.

I had just printed a tee shirt with the slogan “Get America Making BASKETS Again” and I meant it! And was going to stand by my statement.  I haven’t taught a workshop in three months and there are a lot of folks that have been stuck in their homes and they want to make baskets. I asked Tony “Do you know of any other scheduled basket workshop that has taken place?” He couldn’t think of one. I then said, “I am in! let’s do this.”

And we did.

The workshop started this past Saturday and finished up Tuesday. There was five of us on Saturday and Sunday and eight of us on Monday and Tuesday.  This allowed us to have plenty of safe distancing. Everyone had a great time—trust me on that. But we didn’t share it.

Tony, who I call “The King of all Social Media,” and my wife with her blog, were on the down-low in sharing updates of the workshop due to all the riots that cropped up at the same time. I know initially, Lynne planned on posting pics from the class to share with all our followers. But it didn’t seem right to be displaying others having fun while so much distress was going on. The night before the last day of class, four police officers in St. Louis were shot and another retired black officer was killed trying to protect a pawnshop. With all that said, I was ready to go home.

The workshop ended very early by my standards, and I was able to leave St. Louis quickly. My goal was to get through Murfreesboro, TN before their curfew. The previous night, they had to use tear gas at the crowd around the courthouse. Murfreesboro, if you don’t know is a large city southeast of Nashville. I have to go through it to get to McMinnville, and there’s no highway to take to get past it. You have to drive through the city. 

When I crossed the Kentucky state line into Tennessee, I stopped at the welcome center. Inside the center, all the walls where the brochures are held, were completely empty. No attendants anywhere. There was one cop outside, watching over things. This was Tuesday night. But I was happy because I was now in Tennessee and that meant I was about two hours from home. 

Traffic was light and moving fast. As I was getting closer to Nashville the sun started getting lower and lower, hitting the glass on the Nashville sky scrapers which made them sparkle. 

It had to be getting close to quarter of eight. It was a weird feeling because all I focused on was getting home before dark. Get beyond Murfreesboro before dark! I was Charlton Heston in Omega Man. Get home before dark!

I didn’t quite make it home before dark but it was smooth sailing after I left Murfreesboro. When I pulled into our driveway, Lynne and Izzy were there, waiting for me.

I wasn’t able to hug my wife but Izzy was the next best thing.

Take a deep breath. It is not all what it seems to be. All is going to be good.

Be safe.

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