Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/09/27

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Subject: [Leica] a serious question
From: len-001 at verizon.net (Leonard Taupier)
Date: Sat Sep 27 07:03:33 2008
References: <380-220089425154659891@M2W015.mail2web.com> <23a0a61f0809250909g13898e70mdf22c27b60f13e92@mail.gmail.com> <3cad89990809251937h63282328n607621517ea26335@mail.gmail.com> <48DC9093.5040600@gmx.de> <F9157800A538BB2E574F34C3@hindolveston.reid.org> <20080926173628.GA16984@jbm.org> <22C160E7-D957-4D5E-B813-65F64DC8046C@btinternet.com> <a2f8f4470809270618v522e287ei66e002d2987626b5@mail.gmail.com>

Daniel, You had one impressive grandmother. Great story.

Len


On Sep 27, 2008, at 9:18 AM, Daniel Ridings wrote:

> On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 10:58 AM, Frank Dernie
> <Frank.Dernie@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> the vast majority of
>> people who can afford these cars would be scared rigid long before  
>> they had
>> reached anything like their chassis limit whereas even my Mum can  
>> do the
>> "full throttle down the straight for a while" routine. From a  
>> purist point
>> of view I am unable to admire these things.
>> Frank
>
> :-) My grandmother was no purist. She was a tough old lady who, as a
> Catholic, divorced a gambler in the 40'ies, leaving her to raise a
> Catholic (many kids) family and take care of her aging father all on
> her own.
>
> Taking care of her aging father led her to owning and running two
> nursing homes (about 40 or 50 patients in each) and administering a
> staff to boot. She worked around the clock. Took in mental patients
> from Alton State Hospital that she took a liking to and gave them jobs
> cooking or cleaning. Let them house up in a crook and crany of the old
> brick building from which Abraham Lincoln once held a speech. Worked
> around the clock, I said that, be she did double time around the
> clock.
>
> I moved in with her (yes, she took care of all the grand-children when
> needed too, she died leaving 104 children, grandchildren, great
> grandchildren and greatgreat grandchildren) when the family moved back
> to the US from Japan and I didn't want to do a 6 month stint in
> Oklahoma before my father was debriefed and declared clean.
>
> She told me, in her sly way, meaning I shouldn't pass the info on to
> my mother or uncles, what she did at 2 am when she finished a work
> day.
>
> She'd go out into her huge, heavy Lincoln Continental (with suicide
> doors) and head out west of Greenville on 159. There's a stretch out
> there in the woods and cornfields that runs straight as an arrow for
> about 10 miles.
>
> She'd floor it. She'd keep it floored for 10 miles.
>
> Then she would turn around and drive back at leisurely pace, with all
> of the day's stress out of her system, and go to bed (only to rise
> again at 6 am).
>
> They day she realized that she'd have to give up her Lincoln was the
> day she got old. She made the decision herself, but she always missed
> that flat-out speed experience.
>
> She died in her high ninties, just a couple of years after her
> maternal aunt. The ladies in our family are toughies.
>
> But she wasn't a purist :-)
>
> Daniel
>
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In reply to: Message from wildlightphoto at earthlink.net (wildlightphoto@earthlink.net) ([Leica] a serious question)
Message from simon.apekop at gmail.com (simon jessurun) ([Leica] a serious question)
Message from jayanand at gmail.com (Jayanand Govindaraj) ([Leica] a serious question)
Message from douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp) ([Leica] a serious question)
Message from reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid) ([Leica] a serious question)
Message from jbm at jbm.org (Jeff Moore) ([Leica] a serious question)
Message from Frank.Dernie at btinternet.com (Frank Dernie) ([Leica] a serious question)
Message from dlridings at gmail.com (Daniel Ridings) ([Leica] a serious question)