{"id":733,"date":"2012-06-09T16:02:36","date_gmt":"2012-06-09T21:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/?p=733"},"modified":"2012-06-10T20:47:30","modified_gmt":"2012-06-11T01:47:30","slug":"written-for-my-dear-auntie-caroline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/written-for-my-dear-auntie-caroline\/","title":{"rendered":"Written for my Dear Auntie Caroline"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:23,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/kaybuena.com\\\/images\\\/smCAS2002NovCCLv2+20C-20G+20R.jpg&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/kaybuena.com\/images\/smCAS2002NovCCLv2+20C-20G+20R.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"drawing based on 1940s photo\" src=\"https:\/\/kaybuena.com\/images\/tnCAS2002NovCCLv2+20C-20G+20R.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"148\" height=\"203\" \/><\/a>I&#8217;m doing my Christmas Shopping early this year. I&#8217;m getting everyone I know a pair of sox with shoes printed on them. This is to sell over the Internet on a big scale basis; wait; Oh no&#8230;news flash. It&#8217;s been done.\u00a0 really?<\/p>\n<p>Then, I don&#8217;t have to do that yet. What a relief. I want to tell you all a story about when I was a child, that does not involve any infernal or internal plot twists or horrible, idiotic threats of going public on these stupid stories or ideas of mine. Cause, there comes a time when you have\u00a0got to give that up: And just start to verbally describe the situation; now is a good time to start.<\/p>\n<p>I was on a road trip with my family, in our 1952 Ford Station wagon, that had not yet\u00a0turned to dust, from the Salt Spray, or anything: Let&#8217;s say I was 10. That&#8217;s a good age. I was scheduled to go into &#8216;town&#8217; with my mother and\u00a0my infamous and flamboyant Aunt Caroline, and view some big town exclusive, comparatively so, shopping situations, and perhaps attend the &#8220;Dime store&#8221;, which was always my favorite place. It was my destiny and became the reason to exist, because in those days there were many an event, in which my existence was not a given. And although that does sound like a childish exaggeration, this particular year was a busy one for my family,a year\u00a0in which I contracted a near death\u00a0case of\u00a0what turned out to be\u00a0infectious Hepatitis,after having been diagnosed as having the flu.\u00a0And we were stationed at a very dangerous base, where the early testing of military ICBM&#8217;s (many often had to be destroyed as they headed back our way failing to reach near\u00a0orbital distance.) This sort of a childhood makes for a room full of sarcastic\u00a0people, determined but frustrated by the slow process needed for a successful launch.\u00a0 These people were often at home with\u00a0 the slow, steady, &amp; beautifully-planned <strong>trial and error<\/strong> that is the basis of\u00a0the scientific developmental process, but this was not really ever understood by a child, and yet watching things progress and change is probably what prepared me for some of the hard hits\u00a0I took as an adult and beyond. But back to our road trip.<\/p>\n<p>So\u00a0we three females of our family then, (sans my grandmother who was doing something worth while like reading a book, or making a floral display for the living room table. She really was a smart lady. Also, she knew when to bow out and let those who needed the exercise take to the streets) . My Aunt drove her new Cadillac, with her white gloves on and a small hat with a veil to keep the sun from her face, I guess it had a purpose\u00a0(however, in Florida we were much more casually dressed and in general took on a more low profile of a\u00a0fashion image, but even so, at that time,\u00a0I thought fashion wise both fancy upper-class ladies were putting on the &#8220;dog&#8221; (\u00a0as we would have said here in the south) and the whole car load seemed a tad\u00a0of a\u00a0study in old fashioned snobbery&#8212;but that is just me and what do I know about formal shopping trips anyway?) However, I had white kid gloves that my father got from one of the islands down range, which I had brought with me, just in case.\u00a0 They were\u00a0brand new and clean and wrapped in tissue paper to wear, a light blue summer dress with a Sailor collar, as nothing was funnier to the Air Force Kid&#8217;s than to dress up like Sailors. No offense meant, yawl, it was just the way it was. It was a\u00a0&#8220;female women of the opposite sex type of\u00a0situation&#8221;, as my Dad in his prime used to call such activities, and we were visiting Texas from Florida where we lived, So\u00a0we female women hit the road\u00a0for our adventure, while\u00a0my brother and cousin, were playing chess or some such pointless activity (ha.), and my Dad and my Uncle were working on some building project they cooked up and would not let me be involved in any way, shape, or form.<\/p>\n<p>So,we ladies three\u00a0went as though headed for Europe, we three models of \u00a0relatively the same person, in alternate time zones, one small, one medium and one medium Texan.<\/p>\n<p>That would be my Aunt. She was my God Mother and I Loved her dearly and still do, even though she has matriculated into the next world. My mother struggled with perfection all of her life\u00a0and it always was a horrible problem to the rest of the family. I never for one minute thought it was or would be a problem for me,\u00a0a problem that I would have to\u00a0face later in my life,\u00a0however having found myself lacking in many a personal skill as the years\u00a0went by, I realise I should have paid close attention to her quest with great concentration, and learned to understand her way of thinking much more that I did. I might have avoided allot of pain and\u00a0learned to gain the trust and respect of the rest of my family, instead of just &#8220;doing what I thought was my job&#8221;, of going to school, studying such an &#8216;out there&#8217; subject&#8221; as art forms, and instead paid more intention to the unique experience of getting to be one of the few children of a father involved in an incredible effort like man&#8217;s introduction to space travel. Many friends and acquaintances were children of other important developers of this intricate and complex world that was that group of families always changing, and always having to take things in with a low profile and incredible cool., But, I do not get that 2nd chance.\u00a0 No one did.\u00a0 And that&#8217;s a direct hit from the arm chair umpire, here in the middle of the night, a completely different person now, as though that never happened, and\u00a0I have reached the time when my body\u00a0seems too fragile to me\u00a0tonight,\u00a0at that surly point when you know you have to strain just to keep up with breathing and you simply want to get\u00a0this done with, and out of one&#8217;s mind, so it becomes something I can continue to live with.Take me back to that back seat.<\/p>\n<p>I rode alone\u00a0in the back seat, and my mother was in the passenger side, I noticed how Spanish and exotic and beautiful she looked that day and how very elegant she was then. And my Aunt drove on,she too was so gorgeous\u00a0with such a confidant attitude\u00a0through the streets of this strange, hot, town in Texas, back then.\u00a0 It seemed\u00a0very visually interesting if not too well structured\u00a0 of a small town,\u00a0 Austin, TX., the summer of 1957 and the drone of the road sang with the whistling of my slightly opened back window so as to breathe in the fresh air, both sisters smoked like factories in the north.\u00a0 We were on the road for a while curving with the small country roads,\u00a0when, out of my own self conscious meditation\u00a0or Golden\u00a0silence came what was a heretofore\u00a0unheard of voice from the front seat,\u00a0exclaiming\u00a0 the word &#8220;Shit!&#8221; loud as a Bus horn, or a small explosion. I looked to see what accidental problem we met, but nothing seemed wrong to me.\u00a0My aunt, had simply\u00a0made a wrong turn or something like that, as she and her sister (also my mother)\u00a0conversed at 75\u00a0words a minute in a\u00a040 words a minute zone.\u00a0And I had been so pampered and sheltered from such words back in that time as to be highly amused and totally entertained by the concept\u00a0of such\u00a0a lady looking so fancy and acting so sophisticated uttering a gutter word with such little regard.\u00a0It was not that big of a deal, but you could tell these two were in the mist of some sort of sibling rivalry for Alpha status, or some such.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, till this day I think of how I smiled back at my God mother, Aunt Caroline back then\u00a0as I met her eyes in the rear view \u00a0mirror\u00a0from the back seat of that car, and how in that secretly shared moment\u00a0when she checked my expression, we\u00a0instantly recognized how important we would be to each other in the future. Which\u00a0is how I always felt about my inclusion in family drill situations, and she always checked that I wasn&#8217;t being ignored or mistreated, which she did until the day she died&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>My hands hurt. Can you believe that? I am very clearly not ten years old anymore. I really need to trust my husband to fix this tribute to my dear God Mother, may she rest in Peace; and here in Texas, it is\u00a0peach season. It&#8217;s a good chance that I will do that\u00a0too one of these days. Just not too soon.<\/p>\n<p>As Always, Kay Buena aka Caroline Abbitt Sauer,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m doing my Christmas Shopping early this year. I&#8217;m getting everyone I know a pair of sox with shoes printed on them. This is to sell over the Internet on a big scale basis; wait; Oh no&#8230;news flash. It&#8217;s been done.\u00a0 really? Then, I don&#8217;t have to do that yet. What a relief. I want [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-true-and-unusual-stories","category-unusual-stories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8R4qt-bP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":243,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/dont-start-that-that-not-just-ignorant-its-fooaar-out-in-right-field-estupido\/","url_meta":{"origin":733,"position":0},"title":"Spammers: get a hobby","author":"Kay Buena","date":"September 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"And while I'm reviewing some of my weirdest chance meetings with strange types (that would be you) of personages,\u00a0 I sometimes wonder why I waste my time writing up something I work really hard on, and edit until a blunt edged hind-end knocks on my door, because not only do\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Unusual Stories&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Unusual Stories","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/true-and-unusual-stories\/unusual-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":285,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/the-day-i-got-some-credit-for-being-my-fathers-daughter\/","url_meta":{"origin":733,"position":1},"title":"The Day I got some credit for being my Father&#039;s daughter.","author":"Kay Buena","date":"June 18, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Unusual Stories&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Unusual Stories","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/true-and-unusual-stories\/unusual-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":662,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/the-intro-for-a-new-catagory-the-truly-strange-and-unusual-adventures-of-kay-buenas-youth\/","url_meta":{"origin":733,"position":2},"title":"The Intro for a new category: The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena&#8217;s Youth","author":"Kay Buena","date":"May 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0As a \"Military Brat\", a positive term used to describe children of parents in the Armed Forces of the United States of America, I have a strange but (I\u00a0think) interesting point of view of what is considered normal. (Well, it is certainly a \u00a0different normal than most.) I went to\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/C03S49-ClinewithCup320x480.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":192,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/the-re-appearence-of-the-most-surprising-entity-the-new-improved-betty-jane-childhood-companion-of-ms-buena\/","url_meta":{"origin":733,"position":3},"title":"6. The re-appearence of the most surprising entity: The New Improved &quot;Betty Jane&quot; (Childhood companion of Ms. Buena)","author":"","date":"March 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0\u00a0 We were involved in our usual drama of\u00a0 a personal nature, when out of that where in no-where\u00a0 re-enters my strangely intriguing\u00a0 main character once again, Ms. Betty Jane Abbitt.\u00a0 So she's a doll.\u00a0 Get over it.\u00a0 So I'm over 60.\u00a0 Get over that too.\u00a0 This sort of silliness\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;(The) Betty Jane Chronicles&quot;","block_context":{"text":"(The) Betty Jane Chronicles","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/the-betty-jane-chronicles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Betty Jane Mug Shot","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kaybuena.com\/images\/tn20080929BettyJaneIMG_1023.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":41,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/betty-janes-laundry-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":733,"position":4},"title":"1. Betty Jane&#039;s Laundry Day","author":"Kay Buena","date":"August 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Betty Jane is the kind of doll that most kids can tell is a doll to \"play with\" and not just look at.\u00a0 My mother gave me the dubious and questionably intelligent Betty Jane, on my 4th birthday.\u00a0 At first\u00a0with her\u00a0long blond hair and a surprised look, and prim\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;(The) Betty Jane Chronicles&quot;","block_context":{"text":"(The) Betty Jane Chronicles","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/the-betty-jane-chronicles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Betty Jane","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/technologists.com\/photos\/2004\/sm04S00BettyJane.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":317,"url":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/the-day-i-got-some-credit-for-being-my-fathers-daughter-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":733,"position":5},"title":"The day I got some credit for being my father&#039;s daughter","author":"Kay Buena","date":"September 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"One fine day last spring in 2009, when the day was way too hot to be cabin fevered at home, I decided to set out on my own, as The Collingsworth Foundation from our British allies, a society worthy of\u00a0quite a bit of\u00a0praise and attention, as they had\u00a0sent three planes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth&quot;","block_context":{"text":"The Truly Strange and Unusual Adventures of Kay Buena's Youth","link":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/category\/true-and-unusual-stories\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=733"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":735,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/733\/revisions\/735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kaybuena.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}