Famous People

I’m not a neutral party. I have my point of view. But for what it’s worth, I believe that a goodly percentage of the hell that Aunt Elodie kicked up was intended to rectify a problem. You might agree with her, if you agree that a lack of any famous people where you grew up is a problem. For the sake of argument, let’s say you do.

By its name you would imagine Plains City is bigger than it is. The fact is, it’s not really a city, it’s just a town. Specifically, it’s a town that never had any famous people. I don’t count mayors or other ambitious people with overactive Facebook pages, or the guy from the West Edge who put his mother-in-law up for auction on eBay.

There was one bidder, by the way, by the time the powers that be made him take down the offer. Wouldn’t you like to understand that guy’s thought process?

Anyway, I love my aunt but have my own idea of famous. In my opinion it’s what comes to a person on wings when he isn’t looking.

Aunt Elodie was my mother’s older sister. Momma was unstable and traveled frequently, and Daddy set no world records in coping skills, so Aunt Elodie had a heavy hand in the raising of me, her nephew, Augustus Milton. Which of course is another reason why I am the last thing from a neutral party in this discussion.

One of my aunt’s peculiarities was never admitting how old she was. Momma claimed she couldn’t remember, Daddy couldn’t be bothered to answer the question, and nobody else I knew had any reason to hazard a guess. I asked Aunt Elodie herself point blank on more than one occasion, and each time she boxed my ears. The last time I asked her I was 23 years old, and believe me it is humiliating for a full-grown man to have his ears boxed. According to Daisy there are states where ear-boxing has been outlawed. Ours is not one of them. Daisy, I should say, is the woman I intended to marry when the time came.

Old is the point. Aunt Elodie was of seriously advanced years when she dropped down on her hands and knees and bit the letter carrier’s ankle on the front stoop. She — I’m talking about Aunt Elodie, not the letter carrier, who also was female — had a walnutty look with oddly short limbs and currant eyes like a gingerbread person just out of