Long trip to south Jersey to visit a remaining aunt

“Ya fergot yer flash, Robert-John.” “Don’t need it!” (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

In 1944, when yrs trly was born, my Aunt May was 13 about to become 14.
So now at age-73, my Aunt May is soon to be 87.
My Aunt May is as ornery as me.
“Oh, a smarty-pants, eh? A wisenheimer.”
My Aunt May is a last remaining aunt; born in 1930, the height of the Depression.
Her mother, my paternal grandmother, was angry. She was 41. —My mother had my youngest sister at 44, “It’s a miracle, Bobby!”
My Aunt May was not planned. She was an accident.
Yet my grandmother allowed my grandfather to have his way with her.
The one who paid was my Aunt May, although my grandfather was thereafter banned from the boudoir. Separate bedrooms, Baby!
My grandmother loudly badmouthed Aunt May the whole time she grew up.
My Aunt May imitates her mother: “May! Whatcha doin’ that for? Cackle-cackle-cackle-cackle!”
When my Aunt May finally married: “There! Rid of her at last!”
This may be an exaggeration, but I too had a difficult childhood. Mainly it was my hyper-religious father, loudly declaring I was “disrespectful.” —That I couldn’t worship him as worthy of the right hand of Jesus.
My mother did same at first, but as I became a teenager she began to realize they were losing me.
With Aunt May it was different. “My father saved my butt hundreds of times.”
“I always loved you, May,” he told her on his deathbed.
Every year a Thanksgiving gig was held at one of my cousins, one of my Aunt May’s two children.
I never knew about it. Quite a few people came, including long-lost cousin David, only child of my Uncle Rob, my father’s younger brother.
Relatives of my cousin’s wife also attended — I barely knew her name.
After my wife died I concluded I should attend this gig, in a feeble attempt to distract by socialization.
My first attempt got snowed out by a giant blizzard. It’s a 360-mile drive; I started out, but had to turn back.
I visited perhaps a month or two later, plus two more actual Thanksgiving gigs. Met my cousin David for the first time in decades — a dead ringer for my Uncle Rob.
Each time I spent more time with Aunt May than most. We’re two peas in a pod. We swap stories of our horrible childhoods.
“You ain’t ridin’ no ‘Maid-of-the-Mist.’ $1; are you kidding? WE’RE BROKE!”
“May, whatcha doin’ that for? Who do you think you are?”
Travel for me was difficult after my wife died.
“Takes the wind outta yer sails,” says my neighbor up-the-street, who also lost his wife.
My wife’s mother in FL attained 100 years last year. I decided to try flying to FL to attend her birthday celebration.
No car rental; my wife’s only brother, who also lives in FL, would cart me around.
The whole trip took incredible nerve — three-and-a-half years since my wife died. But I pulled it off.
That was 2016; I decided this year if I could do my wife’s mother’s birthday, I should be able to visit my niece in Fort Lauderdale.
That niece is my sister’s only child. That sister is now gone, another cancer-victim like my wife. I have one sister left.
And this time I would advance to renting a car.
More success.
Since my Aunt May seems to like having me around, I decided to try a non-Thanksgiving visit.
That’s a long motor-trip to south Jersey — actually my brother in northern DE. I do south Jersey from his house.
My Aunt May, divorced from her husband, had two houses in Swedesboro (NJ), both rental properties. She lived in one.
She sold one, so now lives in the other, and I guess her son Paul moved in to take care of her.
So I’d be visiting Paul and Aunt May.
“25¢ for the Margate Elephant; what are you, nuts? WE’RE BROKE! Furthermore you’re disrespectful.”
“That tree-limb had your name on it, May. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! You had it coming.”
So now I find myself seven hours away from someone who enjoys my company.
I can make her laugh. She needs that. She’s had a hard life.
Probably my Uncle Rob could make her laugh too. Once he told me anyone named “Robert” in our family, me, him, and my grandfather, was automatically in deepest doo-doo. Me with my father, and him and my grandfather with my grandmother.
Back in the late ‘40s my sister and I were riding to the Jersey seashore in my grandparents’ Packard. A thunderstorm overwhelmed the vacuum windshield-wipers; my grandfather was driving. Suddenly “FATHER, STOP! WE CAN’T SEE!”
Uncle Rob is long-gone. So now it’s just me; 14 years younger than my Aunt May, but getting older.

• “Robert-John” is ME, Robert John Hughes = BobbaLew. My Aunt May calls me “Robert John.”
• “It’s a miracle, Bobby!” is something my mother said about anything defying simple logical explanation. It had religious connotation.
• Windshield-wipers, now driven by electric motor, used to be driven by engine manifold-vacuum. At small throttle-openings enough manifold-vacuum was present to drive the wipers. At large throttle-openings (full-throttle, for example), there was no manifold-vacuum and the wipers would stall.