Collipopiswahs

Collipopiswahs at Wildwood, NJ, 1939.

Yesterday (Monday, November 30, 2009), like clockwork, we received our first Christmas card.
It was from Aunt Dot and Chrissy in Maine, and is always the first Christmas card we receive each year.
I imagine Chrissy doing the Christmas cards while the Thanksgiving turkey roasts in the oven.
I won’t do ours for another two weeks or so.
My Aunt Dot is the last of the famed “Collipopiswahs” (“Collie-POP-ih-swahz”). She’s in her 90s.
The Collipopiswahs were a de facto sorority my mother belonged to in high school.
There were six girls.
Chrissy is a daughter of my Aunt Dot and Uncle Herb.
My Uncle Herb was a brother of my mother. —She was from a big family.
Chrissy never married, so I guess now takes care of her mother.
A Christmas annual was folded inside the card.
My Aunt Dot had suffered her second transient ischemic attack, a mini-stroke I guess.
Various grandchildren and great-grandchildren got paraded as participants in school sports, endeavors, etc.
Their dog Stella still barks at the “racoon” (that’s her spelling).
Every time I hear the name of that dog I think of Marlon Brando yelling in “Streetcar Named Desire.”
By now, Chrissy is probably in her 60s.
Her mother won’t last forever.
My mother died a few years ago, and was one of the last of the Collipopiswahs.
Who knows if Chrissy will ever get married.
Another cousin did recently at age 67, and she had never been married either.

• “We” is myself and my wife of almost 42 years, “Linda.”