[Leica] a serious question DANIEL'S GRANDMOTHER! :-)

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Hi Daniel,

Such a wonderful life story! Such a heart warming human being! Thank you for
posting it, made my day! :-)

Such great spirit, sounds like a lady I would've enjoyed a ride down the
highway even at 2 a.m.!

And imagine, she did it without seat belts! :-)

Thank you again.

Cheers,

ted

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+tedgrant=shaw.ca@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+tedgrant=shaw.ca@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Daniel
Ridings
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2008 6:18 AM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] a serious question

 

On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 10:58 AM, Frank Dernie

<Frank.Dernie@btinternet.com> wrote:

> the vast majority of

> people who can afford these cars would be scared rigid long before they
had

> reached anything like their chassis limit whereas even my Mum can do the

> "full throttle down the straight for a while" routine. From a purist point

> of view I am unable to admire these things.

> Frank

 

:-) My grandmother was no purist. She was a tough old lady who, as a

Catholic, divorced a gambler in the 40'ies, leaving her to raise a

Catholic (many kids) family and take care of her aging father all on

her own.

 

Taking care of her aging father led her to owning and running two

nursing homes (about 40 or 50 patients in each) and administering a

staff to boot. She worked around the clock. Took in mental patients

from Alton State Hospital that she took a liking to and gave them jobs

cooking or cleaning. Let them house up in a crook and crany of the old

brick building from which Abraham Lincoln once held a speech. Worked

around the clock, I said that, be she did double time around the

clock.

 

I moved in with her (yes, she took care of all the grand-children when

needed too, she died leaving 104 children, grandchildren, great

grandchildren and greatgreat grandchildren) when the family moved back

to the US from Japan and I didn't want to do a 6 month stint in

Oklahoma before my father was debriefed and declared clean.

 

She told me, in her sly way, meaning I shouldn't pass the info on to

my mother or uncles, what she did at 2 am when she finished a work

day.

 

She'd go out into her huge, heavy Lincoln Continental (with suicide

doors) and head out west of Greenville on 159. There's a stretch out

there in the woods and cornfields that runs straight as an arrow for

about 10 miles.

 

She'd floor it. She'd keep it floored for 10 miles.

 

Then she would turn around and drive back at leisurely pace, with all

of the day's stress out of her system, and go to bed (only to rise

again at 6 am).

 

They day she realized that she'd have to give up her Lincoln was the

day she got old. She made the decision herself, but she always missed

that flat-out speed experience.

 

She died in her high ninties, just a couple of years after her

maternal aunt. The ladies in our family are toughies.

 

But she wasn't a purist :-)

 

Daniel

 

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