Super Franny

When I wrote about my Aunt Tillie being the matriarch of our family, I meant immediate family that I have grown up with.

I have a hmmm..I 'THINK' ... great aunt that I have only known for a few years. When my family started a website we got a whole 'nother (you'll know what I mean in a minute by 'nother) set of relatives that I had never met or heard about. I am not really sure if I even know how I am related to her. I know it is from my father's family because her last name is my maiden name.

She reads my blog daily and often makes comments. I am sure to get a lengthy description of EXACTLY how we are related in just a short period of time. Hey! I'm embarrassed that I don't already know. I am sure my dad told me at one time but that fact has seemed to escape me.

She is at LEAST sixtyty ten. (You're welcome Frances.)

I remember when I turned forty two and still called my self "Thirty Twelve." It just made me feel better. Although now a month away from turning "Thirty Nineteen" it has begun to lose the appeal and just makes me sound desperate.

Frances is one peppy Southern Belle. Not even having a computer until the last few years, she now pays all her bills online and is a regular contributor to our family website. She is very computer savvy and gives the most beautiful descriptions of her day and activities with such a southern flair that it makes a wonderful read. Her use of the word "KINDLY" is one of my favorites. A word so genteel and meaningful to people like me that grew up in Georgia with "Decent Folk."

When I was young and dating , one of my boyfriends used to make fun of me for saying "Fixin." I would say I was fixin some tea and he would say "What's wrong with it?"

If you grow up in the South, we have our OWN vocabulary. Words like fixin' ... co' cola... ya'll... ain't... and for the older folks 'battry.' That was a big word with my grand father on my mother's side. He would ask if we had any battries he could have for his radio. Or 'protable'. I remember when portable TV's came out and he had bought a TV that was a lemon. He said he returned it to the store and they told him to pick out any portable he wanted. This was when TV sets were as large a piece of furniture. Since portables had just come out, he remarked "I picked out the biggest protable I could carry."

Of course I guess if he was thinking ahead he would have picked out the smallest, but the economist in him thought "The bigger the better."

But my Super Franny is a true delight. She reminds me of a time when people were simpler and thought more of other people's feelings than their own.

She lives independently and lives life large. Oh, and don't you KNOW she is a member of the "Red Hat" society... a social group for women who wear purple and red and take all kind of field trips together.

She is currently clipping vines at Ison's Nursery in Digby. A town so small you could miss it if you sneezed or turned the radio dial. Not to mention it is already in the nineties here south of Atlanta.

She goes and goes...even after a fall last year and a short gig in a rehabilitation center.

Her writings remind me of my own. She describes life , her outings and adventures with words but you feel like you are reading pictures. (At least I HOPE that is the way I write...that is the intent I have with my drivel.)

But she is in her seventies... (sorry Frances)... and I am in my late forties. She is as sharp as me, sometimes sharper. She hasn't let age or physical setbacks slow her down ONE BIT.

Kudos to you "Super Franny!"

Geez... I hope that I make it to that level and quality of life that she so richly deserves and is luckily able to totally enjoy.

At least I know I come from Good Stock!

Til next time... The thirty nineteen year old COTTON.