Grandma and Grandpa’s,
Savannah, Georgia

March 6, 2004

It is five o’clock Sunday morning, the first Sunday in March. I drive up my Aunt Mabel’s driveway, stop the car, and before I can ring her doorbell like a nice Southern niece with manners, her front door swings open. Seventy-six-year-old Aunt Mabel emerges in her second skin: a purple velour jogging suit that reveals every nook and cranny of her well-ripened fruit. She is, of course, also wearing a leopard-print scarf, gold heels, and a flip-up wig. Aunt Mabel descends the stairs, balancing a gold bag in one hand, opens the car door, gets in, places her hand in her gold bag, grabs her dentures, puts them in, and says, “Lets roll!”