Monday, May 30, 2005
About Me
- Name: Aunt B
- Location: Nashville, Tennessee, United States
Like Donnell Alexander says, "It's about completing the task of living with enough spontaneity to splurge some of it on bystanders, to share with others working through their own travails a little of your bonus life." But, it's mostly the kind of place that folks looking for "girls and cars" stumble across by accident.
I'VE MOVED. COME CHECK OUT THE MOST RECENT STUFF HERE.
WHERE TO DIRECT YOUR HATE MAIL AND LOVE LETTERS
ALL PROCEEDS GO TO BEER
THINGS I SAID RECENTLY
- Nashville, Stop Going to the Chickering Road Side ...
- Why I Don't Visit the Oldest Nephew
- WKRN & Nashville is Talking
- Back to the Copyright Thing
- Skipping Work
- Thoughts on Bodies
- Tennessee Politics--Where's my $55,000, Mr. G-man?
- The Recalcitrant Brother
- My Favorite Comfort Food
THE CAST OF CHARACTERS
Aunt B.--Your kind host.The Butcher--My youngest brother, who lives with me and works as, you guessed it, a butcher. He knows everyone in town.
The Recalcitrant Brother--Our middle brother, who lives in rural Georgia and has a kind of movie star life, if that movie star is Burt Reynolds in Deliverance.
The Reverend--Our Dad, a Methodist minister, perpetually three years from retirement.
Mom--Our Mom. She doesn't get a funny nickname because our mom will not stand for funny nicknames.
Mrs. Wigglebottom--My dog. She's got terrible manners.
The Corporate Shill--Or The Shill, as we call her. My friend from college who was constantly getting me into trouble and going to parties she neglected to tell me about where cute boys would ask her "Where's Aunt B.?"
The Legal Eagle--The Shill's husband.
The Super Genius--She lived next door to me my freshman year of college and we've been friends ever since my first day on the floor.
Miss J.--My first adult friend, meaning the first lasting friendship I made after college. She was my roommate in grad school.
Her Lover--Her Husband.
The Divine Ms. B.--Miss J.'s sister and one of my heroes, because she's brave and funny and mystic and fearless.
JR--My oldest friend. I've known her since I was in the second grade.
Elias--JR's husband and the person who's musical tastes have most strongly affected my own. Oh, how I long to be cooler than him!
The Professor--My closest friend here in Nashville. She's a genius, but she'll never tell you that.
The Man from GM--I've known him since I was 16 and he still hasn't forgiven me for telling him I was a vegetarian when I wasn't.
The Redheaded Kid--No one knows where he comes from or where he goes when he leaves here. I assume he's the Butcher's friend. The Butcher assumes he's mine.
6 Comments:
Pop a top...
I mean, yeah!
No gals in there to thank?
I don't have any female veterans in the family, that I know of.
But, of course, they were back taking care of kids or working to support the war effort.
Before my grandpa was shipped overseas, he'd travel with troops from North Carolina out to Montana or North Dakota, and when the train would pass through Chicago in the middle of the night, my grandma and her friends would go down to the trainyard and throw fruit to the soldiers.
That story tickles me. I wonder what that must have been like for all the guys but my grandpa (who was regularly making the trip and knew what to expect). It must have been weird to wake up to the sound of fruit hitting the train and then seeing a small group of women standing by the train tracks, waving and tossing produce.
I think that historically, women have been left out of the Memorial Day celebrations (or acknowledgements). Although not fighting the wars, per se, they were stepping up to fill the jobs, take care of things at home, etc. And got no "glory."
And now, nothing irks me more than the news out of Washington that George W. is leading the charge to keep women out of combat--still and again.
So, your initial post has challenged me to think beyond my Grandpa Walter, my dad (coincidentally also known as "Grandpa Bob), and all the other soldiers I have known and not known--and to try and shake loose some thoughts of the women.
Despite being raised by a cadre of feminists (older sister in particular), I am at times an abysmal failure to the sisterhood.
Sigh.
Here's to all my relatives that had the courage not to fight.
Thanks guys.
Elias
Oh...maybe it was the wrong day to say that.
There was no disrespect intended.
Elias,
You crack me up. Don't the Mennonites find it unseemly to gloat?
Plus, coming from a family that did the same thing--is Great Grandma's last name Heistein or Hiestein or Heistien or Hiesten or what, exactly?--I don't know that making the vowel combinations in your last name impossible to remember and so easy to fuck up, so that you are unfindable by government agencies really constitutes a political stand.
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