Going Through The Motions

My Aunt Marden wore a lot of orange and brown back in the day. Even in the late seventies, when I was still in single digits, it didn’t seem like much of a color combination.

She was one of those not-really-your-aunt aunts. In fact, she was my mom’s roommate at the College of St. Theresa in Winona, Minnesota. Don’t look for it, it’s no longer there. I guess all-women Catholic colleges hundreds of miles from the nearest urban center (would Minneapolis even count in 1964?) didn’t have legs. Perhaps because their idea of rebellion was skipping weekly convocation. Or a good time was all-night bridge in “The Smoker.”

Anyway, Aunt Marden spent a lot of time with us growing up in Chicago. Those were the days when the Equal Rights Movement was in full swing. The dining room walls were wood paneling. They didn’t know smoking was bad for them (or so I’m told). And there was a whole lot of orange and brown.

Visits to Aunt Marden’s modest La Grange apartment meant a dip into the jar of pennies. These were good times at eight-years-old. A fistful of Lincolns went a long way at the local five and dime: rubber snakes, snap-tight models, and bouncy balls. Good times.

I’m in a post-marathon, pre-album release low today. I’m wearing an orange sweater and a brown jacket. What I wouldn’t give to be sitting on Aunt Marden’s linoleum floor counting pennies.