Our Aunt Lou-Lou lived in a nearby town that was full of German families. Her husband had a German name too, so I guess they fit in. They had a charming house that I remember as being kinda pointed and brown, with steps up from the street, and steps in the back yard from one level of the lawn to another.
She and Mom were really close. Mom loved to tell the story that one day she said to Lou-Lou, "Am I as tan as I think I am?" and Lou-Lou said, "TANNER!" at which they both roared with laughter.
Lou-Lou's husband was a football player with the early Chicago Bears. We called him Pops, and he had diabetes. He used a cane, but it was hollow and inside was a plastic tube filled with martinis! He used to tell jokes really well. One of my favorites of his was:
The Man With A Banana In His Ear
A man got on a train, and when he sat down he noticed the man opposite him had a banana in his ear. He thought it was really odd, but he felt a bit shy about saying anything. The miles went by, and his curiosity grew with every mile. Finally he could not stand it any more, so he asked, "Sir, why do you have a banana in your ear?"
The man replied, "You will have to speak up, I have a banana in my ear."
Lou-Lou moved to Boston after he died, and after some years she had a Boston accent of sorts. She said "to-mah-to" for instance. She also used her fork in a Continental fashion, left hand, tines down, not switching hands after cutting, as we had been taught. Mom was outraged that she had these mannerisms. I guess Mom thought these were affectations done for the sake of seeming more cultured or something.
Lou-Lou lost her vision but insisted on living alone until she died. She fell out of bed one night, and lay on the floor and waited till morning, rather than use her emergency button, which was around her neck. I don't really know why she did that, except she may not have realized that she was in a serious situation.
Later that day, she was lying on a gurney in the hallway of the hospital. Mom was with her, holding her hand. Lou-Lou asked what time it was. Mom said 1PM (or something), and Lou-Lou replied, "the Army-Navy game is just starting", and died.
On a quiet street sat a large light green house with a stone porch & white pillars. The bay windows on either side of the front door were crowned with leaded glass panels. Inside the house lived five extraordinary girls with two remarkable parents. They were American born Irish catholics. Within this house every emotion was to be played out & sometimes carried to the extreme. Let's take a peek inside, shall we...
3 comments:
Interesting to see the banana-in-ear joke again. I heard the joke when I was about 14 (my variant starting: "There was a man walking down the street with a banana stuck in his ear."
We went on to make up our own variations of this joke, and this went on for years. I can only remember a couple of them now. The man with the steak pie in his ear, who turned out to be a pioneer - pie-in-ear - and the man with the herring-aid. :)
Yes, Lou-Lou! Loved your story Elle, so enchanting and rich.
there was so much revealed in lou lou's tiny, liquid laughter...and boy did mom and she have some good ones. remember how they'd talk into the wee hours almost whispering because we had developed super-sonic hearing capacities. we wanted to know what they were thinking/saying.
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