Itchy Cheek?

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The Family Redacted (and friends) came together last night to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of their beloved matriarch, Hattie Redacted. It was held in her son’s luxurious home in/on Chicago’s famed “Gold Coast.” The entirety of this author’s walk-in closet of an apartment would fit into Hattie’s son’s first floor half-bath, with room to spare. This event was catered, naturally, and the catering would put state dinners at the White House to shame. In her informal address to the family (and friends), Hattie, without airs, noted how she’d had the good fortune to chat with dignitaries the likes of Elenore Roosevelt, and dance with luminaries the likes of Isaac Asimov. She paused several times to wipe away a fallen teardrop. (Not the same fallen teardrop, no; rather, multiple teardrops that fell periodically. It was something just short of crying. That is, unless, perhaps, she merely suffered from an itchy cheek.) She’d lived through the Great Depression, abject poverty, two world wars; the deaths of her daughter, her husband, and many good friends. “Spanish Flu” took her father; and the scourge left her mother too enervated to fend for five children. But Hattie and her four younger brothers (three of whom fought in WWII) managed to pull themselves free of pauperdom. Post-war America had served them and their children well. (It helps to pass as WASPy.) And although they now sport all the trappings of arrogance, they do not strike this author as arrogant. But, in fairness, this author is biased in their favor.* 

26 November 2000

*[With the passing of this matriarch and (over the ensuing decade) her four siblings, nearly all of the ties that bound the Family Redacted together completely unraveled. A few Redacteds have even, to varying degrees, fallen afoul of the law—e.g., one remains imprisoned for murder, while another, who was convicted of fraud, now works as a gas station attendant. But, insofar as this author is aware, most Redacteds remain fairly well-off. One even squanders her days drafting blog posts for the ever-prying “eyes” of the botnet—if only to obfuscate the truth.]

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