{"id":10568,"date":"2021-07-15T11:00:15","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T16:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/?p=10568"},"modified":"2021-07-15T10:33:46","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T15:33:46","slug":"double-90th-birthday-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2021\/07\/15\/double-90th-birthday-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Double 90th Birthday Party"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I attended a double 90th birthday party. Check that off the bucket list. Our family name is Fontenot. The Fontenot men in my family tree are dependable, honorable, honest, all that good, boring stuff. For excitement, they marry interesting women. (My \u201cAunt Rose\u201d.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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My father\u2019s brother, Daniel, was back from WWII, back from Pearl Harbor, back to the farm. He was of settling down age. My future aunt was helping a lady out, peeling peas. The lady suggested that Rose take her chair and bowl and sit out on the front porch, a better chance to be noticed by my eligible bachelor uncle,\u00a0who passed that way with some regularity. Apparently, he noticed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rose\u2019s mother was called Maw Maw Red. About 4\u201911 on her tallest day. Appropriate for the times, she went along on dates, as a chaperone. My uncle had a pickup truck, stick shift, three-on-the-floor. He driving, Rose in the middle, with her legs straddling the shifter, Maw Maw Red riding shotgun, she noticed that Daniel was doing a lot of shifting, and every time he\u2019d reach for the shifter he was brushing the knees of her daughter.
It wasn\u2019t a life of 40 acres and a mule, but it was hard. Both grew up in life before electricity. They were married a long time before credit cards came around, a life of save up, pay cash, till then, do without.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Here are her daughters, Linda and Wanda. I\u2019m going to tell a few of their mother\u2019s stories. Multiply times a lifetime, for all the ones only they know\u2026 Aunt Rose was the \u201cfun grownup\u201d of my childhood. She liked to joke, laugh, but more than all the other grownups, she liked to go. We called her Rambling Rose.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Even when she had to lay down the law, she did it in a fun, outrageous way\u2026a young man, comes courting her daughter, honorable intentions and all that. Rose welcomes him, offers refreshments, but before they adjourn to the front porch swing to chat in the evening air, Rose informs him what time the curfew is. When that time came and went, and still he remained,
Rose went out the side door and fired a shotgun in the air.
Yep. That\u2019s my aunt. Yep, off he went. And yes,
he came back, and became her son-in-law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Even when she had to lay down the law, she did it in a fun, outrageous way\u2026a young man, comes courting her daughter, honorable intentions and all that. Rose welcomes him, offers refreshments, but before they adjourn to the front porch swing to chat in the evening air, Rose informs him what time the curfew is. When that time came and went, and still he remained,
Rose went out the side door and fired a shotgun in the air.
Yep. That\u2019s my aunt. Yep, off he went. And yes,
he came back, and became her son-in-law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Time passed. Rambling Rose had her aches and pains, but she still had that inner zest, to enjoy life. She takes notice of a widower, \u201cJunior\u201d Savant. Rose was with some other \u201csenior\u201d women, at a restaurant, when she noticed Junior at another table. She whispers to them, \u201cThat\u2019s him!\u201d Her friends tell her, \u201cGo talk to him!\u201d Rose replies, \u201cLet me see him walk first.\u201d Courtship in the later decades.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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By the second date Rose and Junior were laying their cards on the table. \u201cAt our age, we just get to the point.\u201d They\u2019d both had great marriages of many decades, only interrupted by death. This second marriage was handled so well, two people with plenty of life yet to live, wishing companionship. Pictures of their first spouses are hung on the walls, side by side, with mutual respect.
This was a fine birthday celebration, both of them turning 90, family from both sides coming together to celebrate good people, who lived good lives, and by grace of God, still living.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It takes some living, to appreciate being alive. I don\u2019t have a bucket big enough, to carry all my regrets, of wish-I\u2019d-said, wish-I\u2019d-done, of all the people that were important in my life, and then they de-parted. There\u2019s always heaven, is what I tell myself. But as for me, going forward, I want to treat my elders like the gifts they are, for who they\u2019ve been, for who they are, and for all the good that rubbed off on me\u2026 That honor-your-father-and-mother thing, there\u2019s a reason it\u2019s #4 in The Ten Commandments<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":279,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[59,894],"yoast_head":"\nDouble 90th Birthday Party - BestOfSwla<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2021\/07\/15\/double-90th-birthday-party\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Double 90th Birthday Party - 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