Ode to Aunt Loretta

My Great Aunt Loretta, the "card" of our extended family, turns 142 this year. At least I'm pretty sure. I never dared ask her age.

Aunt Loretta is my Great Grandmother's younger sister. There were 3 sisters in that family, and quite a history they represented. In fact, I suspect they were the original inspiration behind Shakespeare's three witches. You know - the ones passing the single eye around. Only in this case, it was a martini.

Aunt Loretta had enough personality for the three of them, from the get-go. First off, she had a voice that was brash as an industrial vacuum cleaner, but slightly less melodious. My sister refers to it as "Wolfman Jack without the cool."

She looked exactly (and I mean exactly) like Fred Flintstone in drag. She also had this huge protruding mole on her face with five long black hairs growing out of it. She was very proud of it, as it tended to frighten children. In my experience, frightening children was one of Aunt Loretta's favorite pastimes, along with drinking massive quantities of hard liquor, and attempting to steal my boyfriends when I was in high school.

That was a little unnerving, I have to say. Not the fact that she TRIED, but the clear indication that she actually thought she could pull it off, mole and all.

By the time I hit college, I had deduced that Aunt Loretta was the most reliable boyfriend litmus test going. All I had to do was strand a boyfriend in a room with Aunt Loretta for 20-30 minutes to see what he was made of. Did he have the fortitude to endure? Did he have any natural ability to fake charm? Was he optimistic enough about our relationship to stick around after such torture? Or would he run screaming from the scene, never to be heard from again?

Yes, Aunt Loretta did me more than a few favors in her time. But it'd kill her to hear it.

Anyhow, Aunt Loretta was too entertaining to be mad at for long. She was a marvel to watch in action, at all times. She could still do a respectable Charleston without spilling a drop. She could regale us with stories about the 3 husbands she'd gone through in short order, all of whom died under rather suspicious circumstances.

She was pathologically afraid of driving over bridges. Or rather *being driven over them - she had never learned to drive (and on behalf of the American population, I can only say "Whew!") She would throw colossal fits of shrieking when being driven over a bridge, which I remember vividly and shockingly from a young age, peppered with plenty of "Oh my GaaaaaD! We're gonna DIE!"s in, I believe, C above high C (an amazing digression from her normal range.)

Which is why she lived on an island most of her life. After all, what good is a phobia unless you can air it out once in a while for a bit of showmanship and attention?

Aunt Loretta chain-smoked. But that's a rather pitifully understated description of what she did. She actually excreted smoke from her pores and hair, even when she didn't have a cigarette lighted. Which for so many years I never actually witnessed. It seems to my memories of childhood she usually had 6 or 7 going at a time. And she waved her arms around when she spoke, such that everyone around her experienced rather a rainstorm of ashes.

When she finally quit (and yes, I have to hand it to her, she quit) she excreted leftover smoke for some three and a half years. The *reason she quit, we're all convinced, is that the family began to insist she smoke outside. Alone. Where there was no one to berate, or freshen her drink. Or steal boyfriends from. Clearly, the craving for nicotine was nothing compared to the craving for center stage. Hurrah, Aunt Loretta! You go, girl!

But sad to say, as with other 142-year-olds, Aunt Loretta is starting to slow down. And soon I fear we'll be forced to cast lots as to who in our extended family will be forced to take her place as the token whacko. There's really no one who could possibly do it justice after her reign. She took great pride in her art, but unfortunately didn't have the foresight to sculpt her successor.

I suppose when the time comes, we'll have to take solace in our fond memories of Aunt Loretta's antics, and the wisdom she bestowed upon us about life, love, and the way the world works. After all, as Aunt Loretta always said while crossing a bridge, "We're ALL gonna die!"