Mart

Pleased to meet Mart—short for Martha—outside Thrift Town on Mission Street. A lifelong San Franciscan, Mart just celebrated her 91st birthday last week. Each year, in honor of that great event, she and her granddaughter budget $500 for sleeping bags, warm sweaters, and scarves that they purchase at thrift stores and hand out to homeless people they come across. If they didn’t set a buying limit, they would spend all of their money this way.

Lavender is obviously the thing for Mart. Though I really couldn’t imagine limiting my lifestyle palette to a single color, it is probably the number one style approach that I support for others. Mart told me that she has a 4-year old great-granddaughter who was on the all-lavender path for a time, but she has since switched to pink.

Mart bought her 1973 Ghia new. Its lavender color is custom and its name is Pal. She’s put over 600,000 miles on Pal and Pal still runs great!

This post originally appeared on the Gravel & Gold blog.