FAIRHOPE, Ala. - As of yesterday morning, things were finally getting back to normal at the corner of Church Street and Fairhope Avenue.

Local resident Roland Neeson and Fairhope farmer Floyd Bishop were stretched out in Adirondack chairs, and Fairhope Hardware owner Bill Baldwin stood nearby. “Listen to those fishermen talking,” Barbara “The Tomato Lady” Davis said laughing. Davis, whose nearly 40 years of selling produce there from the back of her truck was interrupted by knee surgery last June, said, “We solve the problems of the world here every morning.”

Davis fell on June 9 last year at her Bay Minette home and seriously reinjured a knee already damaged by years of lifting and carrying boxes of fruit and vegetables into and out of her pickup.

After the community rallied around her with several fundraisers, she underwent knee replacement surgery and has been recuperating ever since.

“I’ll be working part-time until I see how it goes with my knee,” she said. “And I’ll be here from about 7 until noon, but I’m not sure which days yet.”

All morning long Thursday, that corner was easily the busiest and happiest place in downtown Fairhope, as people waved from car windows, honked horns, walked up to say hi, admired the fresh corn, cucumbers, eggplant, squash, onions, bell peppers – and tomatoes, of course – and got their long-missed neck hugs from Barbara.

“It’s just having somebody that keeps us together, and that’s what Barbara has done and meant to this community for years,” said Neeson, one of the main organizers of a major fundraiser for Davis last year. “She’s always been the spirit of Fairhope. Her return gives us hope how after the oil spill that things are starting to get back to normal.”

Barbara’s expected return had been rumored for some time, and many downtown merchants and employees had been keeping a close eye on her legendary street corner this week.

But her sudden appearance Thursday morning was still the cause of surprised jubilation as she quickly fell back into her role as a remarkable one-woman show: selling produce, cracking jokes, giving hugs, talking about the economy, bringing people up to date on her recuperation, and just generally beaming her familiar smile across that picturesque corner – all at the same time.

“We’ll have peaches tomorrow,” she said.