Great Aunt Connie and the Dead Vine

Riley St Restaurant

Today, I visited my Great Aunt Connie. She’s 86, kind of old, and still sharper than my mom. We have lunch at a former train station that has been remodeled into an upscalish restaurant, in east aurora NY. I order fries, and she has some french onion soup, with a glob of cheese floating in it. Kind of an interesting sight, watching her struggle with cheesy french onion soup…We talk about my dad, how much of a ham he is, how her husband was a genius, and how my dad’s side of the family is dysfunctional. Then we get in her car, and we slowly drive back to her place as she points out places she used to live, while cars stack up behind us: I don’t think she notices. When we get back to her place, and the entourage of backed up cars passes by us, she asks me to pull a dead vine from a tree in her backyard. (?)  And then she goes back inside the house to find a picture of my dad.

UPDATE: Aunt Connie emailed me the pic. lol.

dad, the upside down one