When I started the Party Department for Big Time Rents Stephanie and I got invited to a party with a West Marin crowd. It was James, the Concord manager's sister Sandy's place out in Nicasio. In the middle of it someone started passing around a joint which Stephanie had a good amount of and I knew better than to take more than a token puff. My insurance agent was from Point Reyes Station and his niece was his admin. Odd I don't remember her name at this point but she grabbed one hand and Sandy grabbed another saying, "We brought the popcorn machine from your party department and need to make some popcorn," as they led me somewhat like a lamb to the slaughter back to the family room at the far end of the place. As we left the room I saw Stephanie nodding off in the easy chair she was in. Hmm.
There was another young lady I didn't know fiddling ineffectually with the popcorn machine trying to get the kettle to sit in it right. They'd snagged one of the bags of popcorn that I sold that was good for about three hundred people. I had the seasoned popcorn butter melting down in a minute and the third girl went over to put some music on the record player. Sounds odd now doesn't it? Early eighties there were still records. She put on an Otis Redding album and came back over. I was staring at the kettle and had a female shoving breasts against me on each arm. Could be worse.
The butter melted down and I added a couple of cups worth of popcorn and said, "We've got about ten minutes till that's ready."
"Good, dance with me," the insurance lady said. She snuggled right in and it was nice even though I'd never been particularly attracted to her. The song ended and Sandy took a turn. It was a long song and Sandy whispered in my ear, "You know, we're all Druids."
"I know your Mom is," James had got her to come in to wash the dishes and glassware for the party department, we talked a lot, imagine that, me talking a lot, "and now I know that you are. What is it that Druids do in this day and age?"
"We look after the fertility of the crops." she said with a broad smile. There were certainly a lot of crops to look after the fertility of since their family had settled Nicasio and Point Reyes peninsula in the 1860's. James said that his grandmother was bitching because the State have eminent domained her land in Point Reyes to make up the bulk of the Park. It made her a multimillionaire but the land was her life. Maybe being a Druid was part and parcel of that. She'd bought Sandy a new corvette with a minute amount of the money. So...
