Reblogged from Fourth Generation Girl
September is my birthday month, and thankfully, I’m turning another year older. I am now firmly into my fourth decade–or as my husband corrected–fifth decade, because you count 0 to 10 as your first decade…..okay—whatever! The bottom line….I am forty-something and well into the journey of my life. And, with this understanding, I started considering the passing years and what “age” means to me.
As someone who’s interested in wine, I completed an introduction/level I sommelier wine course with my husband about a year and a half ago. When I began writing this post, I started thinking about aging in wine and aging in life. I thought about the grapevine’s journey versus our own journeys. Young grapevines have vigor and brightness, but it’s the older vines that are the most sought after to make the best wines. This is partially because the vines take on the nuances of their environment:…
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One of the great benefits of my parent’s cross-country camping trip was that they had the opportunity to share their cab-over camper for three weeks with two hormone-ridden teenage girls. For some reason, they’d taken leave of their senses and forced my sixteen-year-old sister Marilyn to accompany them, though she could have stayed with either me or Phyllis, either of whom were as married and dull as Mother and Daddy ever thought of being. They sweetened the pot by letting her friend Rhonda who became every bit as unpleasant as Marilyn after a few snug hours together.
Daddy had come into some money, so he immediately set to thinking what he had to spend it on. That was the way he thought. If you had money, you had to buy something. He finally settled on three things: a big Ford Truck, the biggest cab-over camper it could carry and a fine Ford tractor. The total of these items was three times his windfall, but that was the way he did things. Angered at the amount he’d spent, Mother ordered six pair of slacks and matching blouses from Montgomery-Ward. He raged at her extravagance. That was also the way they did things.
Cousin Kat was proud of being “conservative.” She pinched pennies beyond belief, though she could afford to buy whatever she needed. Should she be given clothes or household items, she’d use only what she absolutely had to have, and sell the rest in a rummage sale. Her wardrobe was a mish-mash of parts of various outfits. She might wear a red and white striped sweater vest with a blue and pink polka-dot pullover and heavy gray corduroy skirt or green wool pants with knee socks and loafers or high-top brown boots. On cool days, she always wore a black wool hat or wool scarf. Despite her strange get-ups, she cut an appealing figure as she darted like a little bird along the trails of her little mountain village late into her eighth decade. Related to everyone there, she was totally comfortable with her life, and well-thought of by all who knew her. She worked up into her seventies when she retired to care for her ancient mother and her own ailing husband. After their deaths, she sat with the elderly in their homes, many of whom were younger than she.
Cousin Kat was proud of her trim figure. We were getting ready to go to church with her on one visit, when she asked Mother,” Do you wear a girdle?”
Nutsrok 