Fabulous Friday (Slightly Slipped)

I've been scanning old b&w family photos and have been planning a weekly Friday post on them, but I have to get started sometime. So just pretend it's Friday and cut me a break.

There were relatives who turned up at my grandparents' ranch frequently, part of an extended cast of characters that flowed through--some had two legs, some had four, some I liked, some I loved. This photo is of Mattie and Ethel. They were wonderful. There are only two kinds of people in this world and kids know instantly which kind you are--people who like kids and people who don't. It's not like they played football with us or invited us for sleepovers or anything, but we knew they liked us.

They always (and I mean always) drove a grey Hudson. They drove it for 20 years that I can remember and I wouldn't be surprised to know they drove it for 40 years, because they never owned any other car. I think when they died that vehicle was still in their garage. Occasionally, a Hudson will cruise during Hot August Nights here in Reno and it instantly takes me back to the crunch of gravel on the road into the Ranch as that long elegant grey car would rock slowly to a halt outside the garden fence.

Mattie and Ethel lived in a little white house in Crockett close to the Sugar Refinery and although we probably didn't visit much, they were always glad to see us. The air that close to the Carquinez Straits felt different, exotic, moister than we valley-dwellers were used to and with a hint of saltwater to savor if the tides were running right.

Mattie always had stubbly cheeks and Ethel wore her hair in a braided coronet. To this day, I think women in braids look totally wonderful. I guess I always knew that Ethel was the taller, but then Mattie was so close to my grandpa's size that I never thought of him as short.

What does it mean that they are my first Fabulous Fun Friday Family post? (I don't even know exactly how they were related to us.) Maybe they were there to teach me something about accepting people who didn't fit the mold. They weren't parents like everybody else in my large Catholic family. They didn't look or dress or live like relatives who were more modern, but the clothes and hair and car were part of their charm.

Families are complex creations and we never know how our presence can ripple through the extended group and influence the least likely events. Mattie and Ethel were part of my childhood scenery and life would have been the poorer without them.