RAMBLING ON: Meet Milly

Note: This column was seen in print in a certain newspaper, which shall remain nameless, back in 1994. Hope you enjoy this blast from the past. ~ Janice

***************************

If I could create a person in my imagination to laugh with and enjoy life, she would be a combination of people. Sort of a smörgåsbord of the personalities that have touched my life.

I would call her Aunt Milly. The Lady of Laughter. Nobody I've ever known would be quite as unique as Aunt Milly.

I can remember sitting beside her in the cab of my grandpa's truck on the way home from church. My grandpa was driving and my grandmother and I would be scrunched up in the cab with Aunt Milly. She would clack her false teeth together to a beat only she understood.

I used to wonder if I could have false teeth when I got old and, if I did, could I get Aunt Milly to teach me how to clack my teeth like some weird sounding castanets.

She had hair that was always in a tight bun at the back of her neck. Long and gray and pulled so taut it gave me a headache just to look at it sometimes. How many bobby pins did it take to hold that bun together? Someone once said her hair was long enough to use as a mop. I never saw her do that, but it would have been a sight to see.

Sometimes I wondered if she had both oars in the water. I thought maybe the air was a little thin, but then again, maybe she was wearing her girdle too tight.

Girdles are a throwback from corsets. I saw one in a movie once; a corset, that is. It had to be laced up from the back and tied. That was back when ladies had help getting dressed. It was obvious they needed it. And of course when a lady got married, she spent half the honeymoon untying things.

Aunt Milly was known to say just about anything to anybody, anytime. When she wasn't hiding in a closet, she was a lot of fun to be with.

Remind me to tell you sometime about the baptismal service at church. What she said that night, loud enough for everybody to hear, was funny. And that's an understatement.

If we had been fortunate enough to own a swimming pool, it would have been Aunt Milly teaching me how to go skinny dipping. Of course, at night would be the only time for such an activity. Broad daylight would be much too brazen for a lady, wouldn't it? Or would it? I can imagine Aunt Milly with a wicked grin and her dancing with mischief.

She is a strange concoction of many people and places and times. She stands in my mind now, urging and encouraging me to write the best column I can. Let every column that is set in type be the best one yet.

We, I hope, have not seen the last of Aunt Milly. Hopefully she will grace us with her presence again and again. She wants to teach us how to laugh and smile and enjoy every day that God gives us.

Until next time, I'll be rambling on....~ Miz Grits