Good Morning Gentle Readers,
Ma marked her 88th birthday today.TWC talked to her for an hour or so earlier this afternoon. She was having a relatively pain-free day, which is always a good thing. TWC has more of her genes than a man rightly should, so I worry that the aches and pains are just going to multiply like feral barn cats. The wine helps.
Ma always was an attractive woman and for most of her life she looked years younger than her age. When the new neighbors moved in sometime after I had turned sixteen, they assumed that my mother and I were husband and wife and that my younger sisters were our kids. They never noticed dad because he was working nights I guess. Sure, it helped the illusion along that I looked twice my age.
I can't say that Ma is vain, but she never left the house without looking her best. You'd never catch her standing out front gabbing with the neighbors wearing an egg-stained housecoat and worn out pink bunny slippers. Even when she worked the factory job packaging Girl Sprout cookies she dressed like she was going to dinner at a club.
The House Blond, Mrs TWC, Jake, Ma, & Sonny-Annapolis, Thanksgiving 2011
She was born in 1927 when demon rum was illegal, but pot was not, though a couple of states moved to make it illegal. That spring, the Mississippi River ravaged the south.
After a production run topping fifteen million, the final Model T left the assembly line in May of 1927 to be replaced by the modern Model A, which debuted with a sticker price of $385.00. Inflation adjusted price: $4,474.58 (no power disc brakes, GPS, or flip down TV in the back seat).
Ain't She Sweet topped the pop charts. FDR wasn't yet a household name. Terms like Black Tuesday and antibiotics hadn't been coined. Kid's still died from stuff like lock jaw and diphtheria.
The day before Mom arrived, Babe Ruth became the only man in baseball to hit the ball completely out of Comiskey Park in Chicago. In September he hit number sixty and the Yankees won 110 games.
The first movie with a soundtrack premiered. Grauman's Chinese opened in Hollywood and Duke opened at The Cotton Club.

Taken sometime in 1933. They've all passed on except my mother (lower right). Grandpa has been gone longer than he was here. Baby Betty for twenty years and grandma maybe thirty.
As Ever,