Aunt Dorcas

I was thinking of Valentine's Day gifts today and wondered whether Uncle Howard bought romantic gifts for Aunt Dorcas. If he did, she did not tell me about them. 

He used to go to the corner store every morning to buy her a six ounce bottle of cold Coca Cola. I remember Dorcas was crazy about him.

Uncle Howard dated the Mother of one of my high school friends. I won't say who...just in case.

Aunt Dorcas and Aunt Lizzy shared the same anniversary date. It was not planned that way but the two couples often went out to eat for their anniversary.

She and Uncle Howard came to spend the night with us when we lived in Flat Rock. They chose the bedroom with just a twin bed. She said they liked to sleep close.

It was a big family joke that when Howard came to visit he brought his chain saw and cut back all of Grandma's trees. We wondered if they would survive each new cut.

They camped at Piney Bay every summer. Before they paved the road to Piney Bay, Daddy stopped to let us pick up a little black kitten that had been abandoned in the middle of the road.

Howard put the poor little kitten in the shallow water of Piney Bay to watch it swim to shore. It made me mad but he just laughed. He was a joker.

Anthony had to take off his artificial limbs to swim. He swam like a fish. I do not remember Jimmy going out to Piney Bay with them. Maybe they did not go until after he died.

When our oldest grandaughter was three or four years old, we took her with us to visit them there. Howard got a kick out of her standing beside the dock directing a stranger to "turn it a little to the left" as he was backing his boat into the bay. She is bossy like her Nana.

I expect as I get older I will begin to look more and more like Dorcas. We both shared what we refer to as "the Middleton hips." She had a grey streak of hair at her temple ever since she was a teenager. My son does too.

Well, I have just thought myself into missing her all over again.