1989, passage Thiéré

This is the story of Tumbleweed, the shop I had in Paris for 28 and a half years.

I started the business with no capital and no one would have bet a nickel that it would survive. But my motto was, "The only difference between the difficult and the impossible is that the impossible takes more time".

In the summer of 1989 I hung out my sign on a small street in the Bastille. It was a street that nobody ever walked down. The shop was 8 square meters (86 square feet)!

On my street there were two junk shops (brocantes), a Brazilian art gallery, a Portuguese café and, next door to me, a Corsican restaurant.

Under the Corsican restaurant, in the basement, was a church: L'Église Évangélique du Nazaréen Libre. The congregation was Haitian and they would arrive every evening in their Sunday best to sing rousing gospel songs!

Next to the church, in the basement directly under Tumbleweed, was a brothel. The owner, Aldo, called it a "hostess bar". Shortly after I opened, Aldo started a petition against the church. He complained that the churchgoers congregated and made noise in the street and that it was detrimental to his business!

One of the neighbors, called Jo, was particularly kind to me. She ran a home nursing service and occasionally, she would bring out a couple of chairs and a small table and set them up between two parked cars in the street.

We would chat and other neighbors would invariably pass by and stop to join in the conversation. Once the Corsican restaurant owner, Francis, served us lunch out there. The atmosphere was unique and priceless. But all the while, I hadn't sold a thing!

Kids from the street enjoying a wedding at the church

The children played in the street all day long. They made cars from discarded boxes.

"... among the garbage and the flowers"

One of the characters who lived on the street

Beautiful ebony blade letter openers (behind me) and papier mâché finger puppets