“Welcome to New Jersey”

Annual Thanksgiving Gig. (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

“Oh shaddup!” I shouted to the GPS-lady in my iPhone.
I was cruising off the Delaware Memorial Twin Bridges into South Jersey. I was headed toward my cousins for our annual Thanksgiving Gig.
“Robert-John, yer yelling at yer phone like it was a real person,” my Aunt May would scream.
Most of the reason I attend these gigs is to entertain my Aunt May.

“Why I oughta......” (iPhone photo by BobbaLew.)

She’s my last remaining aunt. She was 13, soon to be 14, when I was born. Now she’s 87.
She was born in 1930, the height of the Depression. Her mother, my paternal grandmother, was at least 40, and mad as Hell.
As a result my grandmother badmouthed my aunt the whole time she grew up. “Don’t do that May; we ain’t buyin’ that! Yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda!”
I too had a difficult childhood. Hyper-religious parents who declared me rebellious because I couldn’t worship my father. “You ain’t ridin’ no ‘Maid-of-the-Mist.’ Who do you think you are? Disrespectful I tell ya! WE’RE BROKE!”
So my Aunt May and I swap stories about our dreadful childhoods. She’s had a hard life, and I make her laugh. She needs that.
“May’s in here,” as soon as I arrived.
“Next time I visit I’m wearin’ a diaper,” I say. “Ya got me laughin’ so much I wet my pants!”
She loves it. We have a good time.
With at least a third of those attending I have no idea who they are. My cousins and aunt I know. One is the lady who married my aunt’s first and only husband. He died recently; dementia I guess.
My aunt and that lady are friends, but weren’t at first. Despite her age, my aunt is still a firecracker. She has a hard time getting around, but is still full of wisecracks and snide remarks.
“Go ahead Robert-John. Take me to task right while I’m saying something!”
Years ago my Uncle Rob, her brother, told me anyone named “Robert” was automatically disreputable.
My grandfather’s name was “Robert,” Uncle Rob (“Robert”) was a scumbag because he sold Fords for a living instead of Chevrolets. And now it’s me, but not disreputable to my grandmother — just my parents. My grandmother was always advising my parents to lay off, and thereby suffering deepest doo-doo.
Although I think later my mother was saddened I was already lost.
Returning to my brother in northern DE, where I was staying, my GPS went crazy. It was pitch-dark, and there were so many detours, I drifted off-route. GPS went bonkers suggesting U-turns.
With no sun to go by I noticed I was heading south toward MD. Dorking around, I essentially restarted from where I began, and somehow fell back on-route. It again looked like I was headed toward MD, but I saw signs indicating I was headed north. (At least 50 miles of dorking around.)
“What you been smokin’, girl?” I asked the GPS-lady.
“Robert, yer always shouting at it, and it’s only yer phone,” my aunt would say.
People wonder why my head is so full of wackiness.
“You ain’t ridin’ no ‘Maid-of-the-Mist.’ Rebellious, I tell ya!”
“Don’t do that May; what’s wrong with you anyway? I’m gonna report you to the principal.”

• “Robert-John” is of course me, “Robert John Hughes” = “BobbaLew.”