I recently received an email with the phrase, “It’s weird being the same age as old people.”

My father had three full sisters who lived to maturity—Duskie, Fleetie and Vallie. One of them was once talking about their names. One sister said, “They gave Frank [my dad], Fred and Faustine normal names.” Another sister replied, “Well, Mother sure whopped it to us!” My uncle replied, “Who ever heard of a man named Purse?”

Perse ( or Pers, the way his wife, my aunt Vallie spelled it) was actually named Jacob Percy Lay. I did not know this for many years, as Perse was all I ever heard him called.

In the past, it was not unusual to discover when a relative moved away or died that there were few if any pictures of them. One of the great benefits of social media is that photographs of practically everyone are rampant! It seems that now we have gone from one extreme to the other, from too few to far too many photographs of almost every person. I am so thankful that one of my late cousins, Mary Eileen Barr, in the days before the prevalence of social media, saw fit to give me a precious picture of the only four of my paternal great aunts that were still living when I was born.

The occasion on which the photograph was taken is rather sad—my dear Aunt Lidia was in a nursing home in Rutledge. Judging from the picture, the facility seemed to be having a picnic, and aunts Orlean, Etta (always called Et), and Carrie were present. They were sitting outdoors in a straight row in folding lawn chairs. This is the only picture that I have of Aunt Orlean and Aunt Et. It is one of only two pictures that I have of Aunt Et and Aunt Lidia. The four of them looked as I recall them from my childhood, except for Aunt Lidia. The look on her face belied the change that the ravages of age had made on her mind. From the picture, I believe her personality had changed.

Aunt Lidia was a very religious woman. She read her “testament” (the entire Holy Bible in small print) every day, sometimes for hours at a stretch. She loved attending Black Fox Primitive Baptist Church her entire life, particularly the “June meeting” when feet were washed.

Further evidence of the change in Aunt Lidia’s personality came from report of an incident at the nursing home in which Aunt Lidia knocked down another resident during a disagreement. My three aunts and Uncle Perse would occasionally visit Aunt Lidia at the nursing home. Aunt Lidia always loved Perse, but Vallie says that she wasn’t too interested in the three sisters. During one of their visits, Aunt Lidia became aggravated over something and began to swear, using language that I’m sure the three sisters had no idea she even knew. Duskie was particularly upset over that. She told the nursing home staff, “Don’t pay any attention to her. This is a Godfearing Christian woman—her mind’s just gone.

I don’t believe my wife ever met any of my paternal aunts. Interestingly, one of the first places we went together as a couple was to Uncle Perse’s funeral at Loveland Baptist Church. That is the first time my wife had the privilege to meet the late great Rev. Oliver Wolfenbarger, who later married us and became our pastor.

I really admired all three of my paternal aunts. Separately they were entertaining, together even more so. Seeing the three of them together was better than watching an episode of The Golden Girls. I talked about them often, and my wife came to know how much I loved and missed each of them.

One Saturday morning my wife woke me up early (9:00 a.m. is early for me on Saturday) and asked me to take her “rummaging”. Oh, the wicked, evil thoughts that went through my mind! A whole Saturday wasted, gas wasted driving all over the greater Knoxville area looking at other people’s junk! Why the blank couldn’t she go by herself and leave me alone, etc.

Do you think I mildly said, “Yes, Dear!” and happily rose to perform my husbandly duties? No, I growled and complained, letting her know in no flat terms what I thought of this invasion of the sacredness of my Saturday.

Nevertheless, off we set. She had me drive her to a residence not far from our own where she purchased something in a flat paper bag. I asked her what was in the bag, and she said, “A picture.” More grumbling from me. “Don’t we have enough pictures? What do we need with more to junk up the walls?”

After a few minutes of my grumbling, she tossed the picture at me and said, “Here! I was going to give this to you later, but take it and . . .”

I pulled the picture from its bag, and there was a colored pencil drawing of my three aunts, Vallie, Fleetie and Duskie. My dear wife had made a copy of my picture and took it to a local lady who drew cameo portraits of each of the three aunts. It is one of the few times in my life that I almost cried instantaneously from emotion. Being the man that I am, I choked back the sob and swallowed the golf ball in my throat. It’s very hard to say thank you to someone after you’ve grumbled and made a fool of yourself by blatantly showing your dissatisfaction.

I was so happy with this sketch that I hung it on the wall at the foot of our bed so it would be the first thing I looked at every morning. I had copies made for each of my four surviving paternal siblings. I’m not sure any of them were as happy with their copy as I was with mine. When I gave one of the copies to my sister Icy Madelene (there never seemed to be much agreement on how to spell her name—I guess that’s why almost everyone knows her either as Mattie or Pat), she looked at it and said, “I don’t want a picture of them old people!” The funniest thing about her statement is that I doubt any of the three aunts were as old as Madelene when the original photograph was taken!
Ah, the joys of growing old (or older)! Next week I will share the sage of my aging, aching back. Until then, I leave you with a thought from my email world:

I'VE DECIDED I'M NOT OLD, I'M 25 -- PLUS SHIPPING AND HANDLING.