Amigos en necesidad

‘“I could tell you my adventures-beginning from this morning,” said Alice a little timidly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
                    -Lewis Carroll - Chapter 10, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland


8/27/17 - I’ve been to the SF Flower Market over 5,000 times; mostly between the hours of 1:00 and 5:00 am. While the days of meeting growers in the middle of the night to purchase flowers harvested the day or evening before have given way to waiting for wholesalers just back from the airport with flowers harvested 2-3 days before, I still prefer the early morning ritual of arriving early for the proverbial "floral" worm. This has earned me the distinction of being one of the “dinosaurs" from the old days and while I still occasionally find the gems I’m looking for, it also affords me a little extra time very early in the morning to have a conversation with old friends. Some old, some new, but almost all immigrant. 

In the waning days of the Flower Market, I’ve decided to single out a few of these people for an occasional story to share.