Okay, now I'm going to wax maudlin, which is sure to drive Judy grasswire on Skins's island nuts, but screw Judy grasswire.
She wasn't any Republican woman of any particular fame, but as far as franksolich is concerned, next to my own mother, she was the most remarkable woman I've ever known. She departed this time and place back in 2002.
She was once Republican National Committeewoman for Nebraska, and married to a big corporate attorney in Lincoln. Old Money, Much Money.
We met when I was 18 years old, and headed to a Republican meeting down in Wichita, Kansas; there were a bunch of teenagers going, and we were going under adult supervision. By the luck of whatever draw, I was assigned to go with her.
My mother drove me to Lincoln from our town in the heart of the Sandhills, to catch this ride.
The driveway was, like, half a mile long, and curved.
My mother and she had never met each other before; never even knew each other existed, but being Republican women, they had a pleasant conversation before my mother left, going back to the Sandhills, and she and I going down to Wichita.
We got back from the meeting, and in less than a day later, before I saw my mother again, she unexpectedly died.
I never told her that; she had to read about it in the newspapers.
- - - - - - - - - -
She cared very much about me. She and her husband weren't "substitute" parents or anything--oh God no, one can have only one set of those--but they were the main people in this life until decades later, they were gone.
I
know I presented many vexations for them; it's just the way we deaf are.
