Eudora and Ann

In one of her stories, Eudora Welty quotes a little ditty she wrote as a child, during the flu epidemic that started at the end of WWI and did enormous ravages all over the world. She had contracted the illness and so had a little neighbor boy. They were both well taken care of and survived but, while in bed she wrote the following, to the great distress of her family:

There was a little boy and his name was Lindsey
He went to heaven with the influinzy.

And that brought Aunt Mary to my mind. Aunt Mary was an older sister of my father in law who fell and broke her hip. The news was phoned to my wife Ann who, after hearing it, put the phone down, looked at me and said in her calm voice:

Aunt Mary broke her hip,
Boo, bee dee boo, bee dee bip.

At which point I howled with laughter and tears in my eyes. You have to know that Ann was the model of poise, propriety and good manners and that ninety nine per cent of the people who knew her would have remained speechless or have a slight heart seizure upon hearing her that day. She had her moments. Damn, I miss her.