JELLY

Spread across plain of bread

filling holes and cracks

like sweet caulk waiting 
to be devoured.
Grape, the soul mate,
drops in globs until
mooshed into voids left by
inaccurate knife.
Squooshing out from folded white,
oozing over fingers licked,
and soaking up dunked milk.
There is nothing better

-Liane Laskoske 

It ain't Robert Frost, but it ain't e.e.cummings either.

Thank goodness.

Anyway, poems about Jelly aren't easy to find.
But I digress.

My Daddy once told me that he remembered seeing Phillip Lance selling peanuts from the back of a wagon on the streets of Charlotte.

That was around 1913 and was the beginning of what later became the Lance Packing Company. I was reminded of that great rags to riches success story at

Don and Lettie Nance's daughter Charlotte's wedding, performed up here in Alexandria, VA several years ago. Linda and I came home from that beautiful ceremony with a gift pack containing some of the best jelly either one of us had ever tasted.

We learned later that Don had made it!

Don said he began his Jelly-making hobby as a diversion from his job of looking after 56 churches as a ministerial executive. (He had learned the craft as a youngster from his older brother Bobby.)

Daughter Charlotte's wedding was the largest jelly request that the Nance Jelly and Jam Factory had ever fulfilled; 250 jars. (Number of employees...ONE. Lettie always leaves the kitchen when Don starts creating)

Suggested Logo

Upon hearing this, I immediately went into my "How I can help my old friend make a million dollars working from home" mode...and began throwing out brilliant suggestions, such as "come up with a strong logo"


then a catchy phrase such as "a Heavenly Taste" or "Peanut Butter's Best Friend"

Virginia Stompers

Then, bragg about it being "made from Virginia's finest grapes.....stomped by Virginia's finest feet"....perhaps even suggest to Jerry and Obie and Charlie and the gang to organize a "60th Reunion Stomping Party."




But NOOOOOOOOOO!  Another  brilliant money making idea of mine shot down before it's even tried.

Don said he's happy making jelly the way he's been doing it...and GIVING it away (with the understanding that the recipients return the jars). It makes him happy.

Anyway, he intoned, "It's better to give......than........"

Darn, preachers just don't understand business. If Phil Lance had thought like that he would still be selling peanuts out of a wagon on South Tryon Street.

-Ed