Licenses -one kind leads to another remembrance

Somehow Fall always slips in, and in the beginning - like today - it's just gorgeous. I must take some pics for you Florida people to see what you're missing. But - I know that too soon these colors disappear and we're in for the dismal late fall before snow comes. Those gray days.

Visited the Corning relatives last night for a delicious dinner. Saw 5 deer in the yard coming in to their parking area. No bear, but we were told it's possible we could have seen one. They've been seen. We left Gracie home - due to allergies to her. So we weren't gone long. Home by 8:00.

The last rain storms, and it was really coming down, caused lots of flooding. Our area around us and the surrounding creeks are full. We saw some fishermen last night on our way to Corning, and Paul said the fish were probably "running" due to the high water level. He hasn't fished in a long time. He says he needs a license - and you can get one at Walmart.

Licenses: Which reminded me of my great Aunt Ella, God rest her soul, who would have been 100 in 1980, was one of the first women drivers. A good part of her life, she had white hair, so she didn't seem to me to age, but to look the same. A great aunt. She was very spry - putting her rugs out on the line, to beat for spring cleaning, every year for years. She was very independent and very opinionated. She ruled the roost, and she and my other maiden aunt Mabel, whom she hen-pecked, lived next door to us, growing up. She retired from teaching around 1945. So. . .licenses: Believe it or not - She got her license from the car dealership where she bought her first car in Brooklyn. ( around 1900. These kind of dates I'm not good at - so not sure of the accuracy. ) I can remember her at the weekly Wednesday dinners at her house, all of us laughing about this first driver's license of hers. Plus along the same lines, but not licenses: Aunt Ella had the same car from 1937 - til she stopped driving - probably 1970. She died before we moved up to Bath in 1976. The car had very small mileage. She never went far - perhaps down the street for groceries, or down to a store in the next village. Aunt Ella was hard of hearing for most of her life, and she would back out of her long driveway onto the curvy street going like a bat out of h --. Honking her horn all the way - "Get outa my way, or else. . ."

She wasn't a good driver by any strength of the imagination. But I don't think she ever had an accident. The Lord was probably looking out for her. And everyone else on the road. Every once in a while, she'd take me for a ride somewhere. I can remember going to Jones Beach Park with her - not to swim, but to just go there, get out, turn around and come back. One story about her relates to her driving there, once, (not with me) and deciding she didn't want to pay a toll and didn't mean to go there, so she did a u-turn in several lanes of traffic. She also had the tendency to drive where she was looking. There are many "Aunt Ella" stories that were hysterical, but that's for another time. If wanted.

What a gorgeous day. And it's lunchtime. What're you havin' for lunch? What are we having for lunch? And what's happenin' in your neck o' the woods?