Who is Aunt Diane?

Please be advised that what you're about to read is essentially me venting. In it, I may come across as mean, cruel, thoughtless, cold, morbid, and arrogant. And frankly, I am all those things! As far as Aunt Diane is concerned she is a sweet lady who, from what I know, has led a lonely, sad life. However, her encouragement of my Uncle's drinking, her lack of anything intelligent to say ever, her gravelly voice, her bad taste in everything, and her chain smoking without regard for anyone else's smoke tolerance has turned her into the Aunt with a mustache that you invite to things only out of pity and obligation. And hence, amongst my cousins and siblings, she has become a bit of a punchline.

So with that in mind, please read on!

To know Aunt Diane, you must first know Uncle George...

Uncle George was my Mom's younger brother and the first born son in an Irish family. Born in 1922, George grew to be quite the man about town in his day. He served in World War II and was a good looking guy, at least based on some of the pics I've seen. He was always the swinging bachelor who could cut quite a rug and the story goes that my Father and some of the other brothers-in-law had offered him $1000 when he got married, which was a decent amount back then. However, George was apparently too much man to settle down with just one woman.

As I grew to know him in his 50's and 60's, George still lived with my grandparents when he wasn't travelling for his job, which I was never able to define save for selling specialty crap to small town banks. I'd usually see George at holidays, July 4th picnics, and various other family occasions. If he didn't bring a date to one of the events, he could usually be found passed out in a chair towards the end of the festivities with his head back and mouth ajar, often seated across from Papaw, who would also be asleep. Of course, Papaw was old and it was time for his nap. George, however, was simply a drunk.

Over the years, George brought many different dates to the various family events. Most of the women were lovely, intelligent, and vivacious ladies with great personalities. Then there was Diane. Maybe the best way to describe Diane is to quote my sister, who said, "Diane is perhaps the most depressing person I've ever met."

As the years passed, George's alcoholism worsened and the only woman desperate enough to stick by him was Diane. Of course, she did this by providing George scotch and a place to stay when he ostensibly went "out on the road." Mamaw disliked Diane immensely and, after Papaw's death, George responded to the responsiblity of taking care of Mamaw by spending even more time on the road working or shacked up at Diane's. I witnessed this myself one day when, while hitting a bucket of balls at the golf course driving range when I was supposed to be at church, I looked down the line to see George come strolling in with Diane loping along depressingly behind him with one of George's golf shoes in each hand. Of course, he was alledgedly out of town on this particular weekend. It was during this time that I adopted my own "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, long before it became a military standard.

It was in these years that George would bring Mamaw over for holidays, usually showing up soused, and slur something about sending him home with a plate of leftovers for someone less fortunate. That person was Diane who, though she had brothers in Tulsa, apparently had little to do with them and vice versa. To me, her desire to spend time with George spoke volumes about her loneliness and desperation to have anyone, even a stumbling drunk, in her life.

By the time of Mamaw's passing, Diane had essentially already moved in with George (who, by the way, now inherited my Grandparents house, having never paid a dime in rent or mortgage payments anywhere in his life). I remember looking at him during the rosary and funeral and thinking that, (1) Geez he's even drunk for his own mother's funeral and (2) Even with Diane around, he looked lonely and lost.

With Mamaw gone and Diane moved in, suddenly they were a couple and my parents and aunts and uncles were compelled to invite them to various family gatherings and, even though we saw more of her, Diane still had little to say and even less to contribute to any conversation. In 1992, they finally announced they were getting married. To this day I've always wondered if George would never marry Diane before then because of Mamaw's dislike of her, because the first born Irish son's heart belonged to Mom and he would never marry while she was alive, or if he used his duty to care for Mamaw as an excuse to hold off Diane and remain a swinging single guy. I also wonder if by then, he was just too drunk to say no to her desire to get married. Finally, I wondered if his marriage proposal went something along the lines of, "Marry me baby and we'll make beautiful mucus together."

What followed was perhaps the ugliest wedding I've ever seen. Unfortunately, the night before I went to a pay-per-view boxing match party and missed the rehearsal dinner at the always swanky Hometown Buffet. Then, the morning of the wedding, I attended the funeral of a friend. So it was with a huge hangover and a heavy heart that I witnessed the first marriage for both the 70 year old, chain smoking alcoholic groom and his 56 year old, mustachioed, shaped-like-a-boxcar bride. The image of said bride pulling up her wedding gown to remove her garter and fire it to the waiting bachelors (me included) will be burned in my brain until the day I die!

Aside from their travels, from what I could tell, George and Diane shared a love of alcohol and smoking...and not much else. If there was a place to sit in their home, you could bet there was a large ash tray filled to the brim with butts right next to it. This included the toilets!

As if their wedding wasn't enough, George and Diane started having incredibly depressing, ugly parties. I got roped into bartending the first. I arrived to find a bottle of good scotch, Jack Daniels green label bourbon, and off, off brand everything else at the bar and almost no food to speak of. My most vivid memory of this party is walking into one of the bedrooms to say hello to my cousin Mark, his wife Deanna, and their newborn son Raymond. As they had shut themselves in there to escape the overwhelming smoke, I walk in to to see Diane staring at the baby and asking inane questions. Here, Diane showed her inmmense social grace when, curious about Raymond's infant acne, she asked (in her delicate, yet phlegmy and gravelly voice hewn from apparently being a smoker since the age of two), "What's wrong with his face?"

A couple years later, another George and Diane party came along. This one was in March to celebrate George's birthday. As Diane seemingly worshipped George, she took a hideous picture of the alcoholic, chain smoking George to Kinko's and had them drop his head onto a cartoon baseball player's body for the combination St. Patty's Day/George's birthday party invitation... Oh yeah, the invite to this party (which was to be held the second weekend of March) arrived the day after Christmas!

I figured I would ditch this party but, for whatever reasons, almost all my out of town Aunts and Uncles decided to come in for this soiree. So, in order to see them, I had to go to this damn thing.

Arriving fashionably late, I missed being "piped" in by the bagpiper they'd hired to do just that (guess he was on a smoke break). Go in and say hello to all the relatives and grab a beer. This time there was plenty of food (thanks to my Mom who'd advised Diane that, oddly enough, some people like more than just booze at parties). As I look around, I see what appear to be shamrock shaped sugar cookies on several people's plates. I think to myself, "Yum, I like sugar cookies!" (As a side note, I also recall thinking to myself, "Yum! Cookies and beer!") Making my way around the table, I come to the sugar cookies and eagerly put one on my plate. However, when I pick it up, it's not a cookie at all. Rather, it is some form of cheese colored green and shaped into a shamrock. Having touched it, I couldn't put it back on the platter, so I put it on my plate and coyly ditched it when I was done. As I looked around, it was only then I noticed that everyone else seemed to have untouched shamrocks on their plate too.

A few days later, my sister and cousin came to visit and stayed at my parents' house. As Diane spent most of her time decorating and redecorating the house (usually in tones of puke green), she immediately invited them over to see everything she'd done. My sister thoughtfully volunteered me to drive them over there. As she led the tour through the house, Diane asked the girls if they were hungry. Politely replying yes, Diane reached into the fridge, pulled out a green trash bag, and held it open for them. They each dutifully pulled out a cheese shamrock! The look of terror on my cousin's face as she pulled out that nasty thing is another image I will carry with me to my grave! Waiting till Diane's back was turned, they both pleadingly mouthed "Get rid of these!" while handing them to me to dispose of!

As the years of smoke and booze started to catch up to George, Diane had to learn how to drive...at age 63! That's right, she retired from her state job as a key punch operator having never learned how to drive!

George did eventually die while hospitalized on January 2, 1999. Of course, where was Diane while her husband was in the hospital? In Georgia visiting friends, apparently not realizing that you can actually cancel reservations!!!!!!!!! Instead it was my parents (both then pushing 80) who got the call in the middle of the night to go be with George in his dying hours. (You'll see that this was actually a bit of foreshadowing later on!)