Thursday, January 25, 2007

Franklin Delano Roosevelt died last night

Well in the book I was reading, he did. And I cried my liberal eyes out. I'm even kind of bummed today thinking about it. How weird is that?

Did you know he was with his goomad when he died? Not in a sexual way, just hanging out while an artist was working on his portrait. Enjoying a relaxing spring afternoon in his Georgia vacation home, He tells everyone they have 15 minutes left until lunch, and then grimaces with pain. He collapses (from a cerebral hemmorage) the goomad gets the doctor and then she and the artist friend have to high tail it out of there because Eleanor was on the way.

Anyway, I've always loved history, something I attribute in part to my grandmother. She adored history and documentaries and was an excellent story teller herself. She kept this trunk filled with her notebooks and old photographs, many of which I have now. I've posted a blurry picture of her, my grandfather, and Aunt Kate--circa the Roosevelt era, probably 1943 or 1944. You can't tell how happy she is in this picture because I don't have a scanner. My grandfather bailed very early in the marriage, and not one to consider age-appropriate stories for her grandkids, Grandma Marilyn said she never really loved him anyway. The guy she wanted, she told me, died in the Pacific, fighting World War II.

But somehow I always thought she was lying, that this dude you kind of see here was the one who broke her heart beyond repair.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

She kind of looks like a blurry Reese Witherspoon.

Angie T said...

Vandy, you are so fucking funny.