Penny Clark

Born in 1956 in Amarillo, Texas.

If you’d have told me five years ago that I'd own a souvenir store, I’d have laughed in your face. But it's worked out, been a lot of fun. I'd spent a lot of my life looking for that happy job. You know, they used to send catalogs out. School catalogs. WT sent out a catalog, Amarillo College would send out, and I would spend hours reading every page of that catalog looking for that happy job. And then, I even, I had set up to go to clown school, but something changed and I didn't make it to clown school. And oh, I studied mimes. I got books on mimes. I still have them. And nothing came through. So finally, I just kind of gave up trying to find that happy job. And I will tell you, here I, I found that happy job.

Like I told you , we see people from all over the world and most of them are happy. But, I get to pull my little pranks and my little stories. Like, I have a dog. And he's a big dog. And people would ask because I brought, kept him up here and they'd say, oh, what kind of dog is he? I’d say, well, I think he's a Rhodesian Ridgeback. And I say, are you familiar with Rhodesian Ridge bags? Well, no. I’d say, well, they were bred in Africa to keep the, help the hunters keep the lions at bay. And then I'd say, and, you know, ever since we've had him, we've never had any trouble with lions.

Now, what was the best part of that is some people, they'd get it, and they’d laugh. And then some people, they'd look at me and go, ohh. And I'd be like, ah ha ha ha.