The Flower Man

 Friday I was dispatched to deliver flowers to a wedding. The venue was 50 miles away. It was a quaint country inn in an Adirondack village. It was snowing about one inch per hour. The temperature was just below freezing so the big fluffy flakes were sticking to everything. It looked like an old New England postcard. The owner of the inn used our shop frequently for weddings and other special occasions. We weren't about to let a little snow stop us. The manager of our shop worried for my safety but I assured her I would get the bridal bouquet, the boutonnieres and the floral arrangements there without a problem. Our little van was equipped with Nokian Hakkapeliittas and front wheel drive. It handled really well in snow. It was getting about 27 miles to the gallon on the highway. I made a couple of deliveries in town and the streets were awful. The snow was coming down at such a rate that the snowplows couldn't keep up. Then I began the long trek to the Adirondacks, fifty miles ...

 The day before New Years Day an old man called the flower shop and ordered a very expensive bouquet for his daughter. He wanted a dozen white roses in a vase. The manager said that white roses may be hard to find but she expressed a willingness to try. Fortunately when the delivery came it included twelve white roses. Actually they were ever so slightly cream-colored, but they were the most beautiful roses I had ever seen. We get all colors of roses, so one might wonder why slightly off-white would be appealing. These roses looked good enough to eat. They were the color of quality white cheddar cheese The petals were alive with soft light like someone had placed a tiny light bulb inside each bud. In short they were perfect in every way. I knew it would be a pleasure to deliver these roses to the lucky daughter. The location was about 20 miles away from the shop. We had other deliveries in the vicinity so it didn't seem too far out of the way. I pulled into the daughter's stree...

It was a Wednesday near the end of December. I was dispatched to deliver a flower arrangement to 16 Wheatley Street. I plugged the address into Google Maps and off I went. Number 16 Wheatley Street was the last delivery of my day. By the time I turned off the main road it was 2:30 in the afternoon. The December sky was gray and remnants of snow and ice lay on the street from the last snowfall. It was not dusk yet but it was looming. On this day it was not snowing and was quite warm. Intermittent drizzle made the sky laden with moisture and bordering on foggy. I loved these kind of days. The GPS in Google Maps told me that I was heading in the right direction. I saw on the mailboxes and houses that the numbers were going up. I drove past 8, 10, 12 Wheatley Street. I came to the end of the street and discovered there did not appear to be a 16 Wheatley Street. The numbers ended at 14. There was a lady in the driveway of 14 Wheatley Street walking to her mailbox. She told me that 16 Wheatl...