The dirt road in back of my house was
a short cut to Wianno Ave, our "main street',
where I would go to school, the movies,
or to my friends' houses to play. I rarely met
anyone walking along that path, so I could
pick blueberries and blackberries
wherecer I found them .
Near the end was a lovely stucco house
surrounded by tall, shapely everygreens.
I often stopped by the patch of
lillies of the valley edging the property
to catch a glimpse of the French lady
who lieed there with her maid.
How did I know she was French and
why did I want to see her again?
Everyone knew her naationality,
but the rest was a mystery.
All I knewwas she was the most elegant, stylish
and gentile woman I had ever encountered.
in my small, provintial Cape Cod village.
Me? I was a bit ruogh and tumble,
a tomboy I guess. Not particularly pretty,
with thick glasses and bowl-cut hair, so I kept the
visits to myself to avoid the usual mockery.
But somewhow, I knew that she was 'who' I
wanted to become, no matter how far fetched.
A hundred or so years later, she is still
the prototype for my 'finished product'
(me). Still with some rough edges,
but fluent in French, with a flair for
creative dressing and a passion for the arts.
Now I'm 100% Irish, but somehere in that
rich and colorful gene pool of Europe
and the Gaelic Isles, I snagged a memory
of a French lady. Or perhaps she snagged me?
Either way, it tells me that family history
country of origin and race may not have the finsl
say in the creation of an individual.
What a wonderful mystery that is!
