"Life will break you..."

Ravenous Butterflies

May 27 at 5:07 AM  · 

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

Louise Erdrich - The Painted Drum

Andrea Kowch

"Hyacinths to feed your soul"...

 

"IF OF THY MORTAL GOODS THOU ART BEREFT,

AND, FROM THY SLENDER STORE TWO LOAVES ALONE TO THEE ARE LEFT,

SELL ONE, AND WITH THE DOLE,

BUY HYACINTHS TO FEED THY SOUL."

--- SADI.

Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment was 122 and 164 days when she died, --- (Part 1)...

. "I'M ACTUALLY A YOUNG GIRL. IT'S JUST THAT I HAVEN'T LOOKED SO GOOD FOR THE PAST 70 YEARS." --- JEANNE LOUISE CALMENT.

   💜💛💚💙😘... She was 14 when the Eiffel Tower was first being built.

     She met Vincent Van Gogh and said he was "ugly, poorly dressed, dirty, reeked of alcohol".

   The tallest she ever was, --- 4 feet, 11 inches. She remained mentally sharp until her death, rode a bicycle until she was 100. She took up fencing when she was 85. She never had measles or chicken pox, but she suffered from migraines in her young adulthood. She came from a family who were basically long-lived; she always looked young for her age. She ate a diet rich in olive oil. She lived alone until she was 110; then, she moved into a nursing home, where her health, which had been astoundingly good, began to fail. She loved chocolate, was never obese, had one child who died at the age of 36, was from a wealthy prominent family and never had to work. (Hmmm... Lack of stress about money, --- a big plus.) Her husband died of "cherry poisoning" at 73. She smoked since she was 21, but only one cigarette or a cigar, after a meal or at bedtime. She played the piano and painted.

   At the end of one interview a journalist said, "Madame, I hope we meet again next year at this time." Jeanne Louise replied, "Why not? You're not that old."😄

💥💪💞💭👵👄...

HER QUIPS & RULES FOR AN AWESOME AND LONG LIFE:

"I have legs of iron, but to tell you the truth, they're starting to rust and buckle a bit." 😀

"I took pleasure when I could. I acted clearly and morally and without regret. I'm very lucky."☝

“Being young is a state of mind, it doesn’t depend on one’s body. 💃

"I'm in love with wine." 👌

"All babies are beautiful." 👶

"I think I will die of laughter."

"I've been forgotten by our Good Lord."

"I've got only one wrinkle, and I'm sitting on it." 😂

"I never wear mascara; I laugh until I cry, often."

"If you can't change something,, don't worry about it."

"Always keep your smile. That's how I explain my long life." 😁

"I see badly, I hear badly, and I feel bad, but everything's fine." 💪

"I have a huge desire to live and a big appetite, especially for sweets." 💖

--- Image with the wings by L. Lichtenfells

122 years, --- the oldest documented person who ever lived, --- Jeanne Louise Calment (Part 2) ...

 

Early life...

Birth certificate of Jeanne Calment

Jeanne Louise Calment was born on 21 February 1875 in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône, Provence. Her father, Nicolas Calment (8 November 1837 – 28 January 1931), was a shipbuilder, and her mother, Marguerite Gilles (20 February 1838 – 18 September 1924), was from a family of millers. She had an older brother, François (25 April 1865 – 1 December 1962). Some of her close family members also lived an above-average lifespan: her brother lived to the age of 97, her father to 93, and her mother to 86

From the age of seven until her first communion, she attended Mrs Benet's church primary school in Arles, and then the local collège (secondary school), finishing at 16 with the brevet classique diploma (O-level). Asked about her daily routine while at primary school, she replied that "when you are young, you get up at eight o'clock". In lieu of a solid breakfast, she would have either coffee with milk, or hot chocolate, and at noon her father would pick her up from school to have lunch at home before she returned to school for the afternoon. In the following years, she continued to live with her parents, awaiting marriage, painting, and improving her piano skills.

Personal life...

Calment at age 20 in 1895

Calment at age 70 in 1945

On 8 April 1896, at the age of 21, she married her double second cousin, Fernand Nicolas Calment (1868–1942). Their paternal grandfathers were brothers, and their paternal grandmothers were sisters. He had reportedly started courting her when she was 15, but she was "too young to be interested in boys". Fernand was heir to a drapery business located in a classic Provençal-style building in the center of Arles, and the couple moved into a spacious apartment above the family store. Jeanne employed servants and never had to work; she led a leisurely lifestyle within the upper society of Arles, pursuing hobbies such as fencing, cycling, tennis, swimming, rollerskating ("I fell flat on my face"), playing the piano and making music with friends. In the summer, the couple would stay at Uriage for mountaineering on the glacier. ("Even at 16, I had good legs.") They also went hunting for rabbits and wild boars in the hills of Provence, using an "18mm rifle". Calment said she disliked shooting birds She gave birth to her only child, a daughter named Yvonne Marie Nicolle Calment, on 19 January 1898. Yvonne married army officer Joseph Billot on 3 February 1926, and their only son, Frédéric, was born on 23 December of the same year. At the outbreak of World War I, her husband Fernand, who was 46, was deemed too old to serve in the military.

Yvonne Calment died of pleurisy on 19 January 1934, her 36th birthday, after which Jeanne raised Frédéric, although he lived with his father in the neighboring apartment.World War II had little effect on Jeanne's life. She said that German soldiers slept in her rooms but "did not take anything away", so that she bore no grudge against them. In 1942, her husband Fernand died, aged 73, reportedly of cherry poisoning. By the 1954 census, she was still registered in the same apartment, together with her son-in-law, retired Colonel Billot, Yvonne's widower; the census documents list Jeanne as "mother" in 1954 and "widow" in 1962. Her grandson Frédéric Billot lived next door with his wife Renée.Her brother François died in 1962, aged 97. Her son-in-law Joseph died in January 1963, and her grandson Frédéric died in an automobile accident in August of the same year.

In 1965, aged 90 and with no heirs left, Calment signed a life estate contract on her apartment with notary public André-François Raffray, selling the property in exchange for a right of occupancy and a monthly revenue of 2,500 francs (€380) until her death. Raffray died in 1995, by which time Calment had received more than double the apartment's value from him, and his family had to continue making payments. Calment commented on the situation by saying, "in life, one sometimes makes bad deals".In 1 985, she moved into a nursing home, having lived on her own until age 110. A documentary film about her life, entitled Beyond 120 Years with Jeanne Calment, was released in 1995. In 1996, Time's Mistress, a four-track CD of Calment speaking over a background of rap, was released.

Oldest human ever documented...

Longevity records...

In 1986, Calment became the oldest living person in France at the age of 111. Her profile increased during the centennial of Vincent van Gogh's move to Arles, which occurred from February 1888 to April 1889 when she was 13–14 years old. Calment claimed to reporters that she had met Van Gogh at that time, introduced to him by her (future) husband in her uncle's shop. She remembered the meeting as a disappointment, and described him as ugly and "very disagreeable", adding that he "reeked of alcohol". She was recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living person when she was 112. At the age of 114, she briefly appeared in the 1990 documentary film Vincent and Me, walking outside and answering questions.  Her profile further increased when Guinness named her the oldest person ever in 1995. Far exceeding any other verified human lifespan, Calment was widely reckoned the best-documented supercentenarian ever recorded. For example, she was listed in fourteen census records, beginning in 1876 as a one-year-old infant. After Calment's death, at 122 years and 164 days, 116-year-old Marie-Louise Meilleur became the oldest validated living person. Several claims to have surpassed Calment's age were made, but no such case was proven. For over two decades, Calment has held the status of the oldest-ever human being whose age was validated by modern standards.

Age verification...

In 1994, the city of Arles inquired about Calment's personal documents, in order to contribute to the city archives. However, reportedly on Calment's instructions, her documents and family photographs were selectively burned by a distant family member, Josette Bigonnet, a cousin of her grandson. The verification of her age began in 1995 when she turned 120, and was conducted over a full year. She was asked questions about documented details concerning relatives, and about people and places from her early life, for instance teachers or maids. A great deal of emphasis was put on a series of documents from population censuses, in which Calment was named from 1876 to 1975. The family's membership in the local Catholic bourgeoisie helped researchers find corroborating chains of documentary evidence. Calment's father had been a member of the city council, and her husband owned a large drapery and clothing business. The family lived in two apartments located in the same building as the store, one for Calment, her husband and his mother, one for their daughter Yvonne, her husband and their child. Several house servants were registered in the premises as well.

Popular media reports...

Apocryphal media articles reported varying details, some of them unlikely. One report claimed that Calment recalled selling colored pencils to Van Gogh, and seeing the Eiffel Tower being built. Another wrote that she started fencing in 1960, aged 85. Calment reportedly ascribed her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age to a diet rich in olive oil.

Skepticism regarding age...

Daughter Yvonne Calment in front of the Church of St. Trophime in Arles, date unknown. This photograph was often mislabeled as depicting Jeanne aged 22.

Demographers have highlighted that Calment's age is an outlier, her lifespan being several years longer than the next oldest people ever documented (where the differences are usually by months or even weeks). There have been various theories about the authenticity of her age. In 2018, Russian gerontologist Valery Novoselov and mathematician Nikolay Zak revived the theory that Calment died in 1934 and her daughter Yvonne, born in 1898, assumed her mother's official identity and was therefore 99 years old when she died in 1997. A Russian scientific journal rejected Zak's paper as being too informal, as did the bioRxiv preprint repository, and Zak published it instead on ResearchGate, a social networking site for scientists and researchers. The theory attracted widespread media attention around 30 December 2018 after postings by gerontology blogger Yuri Deigin went viral. In January 2019, Zak's paper was accepted for publication in the journal 

Jean-Marie Robine, a French gerontologist and one of two validators of Calment, dismissed the claims and pointed out that during his research Calment had correctly answered questions about things that her daughter could not have known first hand  Robine also dismissed the idea that the residents of Arles could have been duped by the switch. Michel Allard, the second doctor who helped verify Calment's records, said that the team had considered the identity switch theory while Jeanne was still alive because she looked younger than her daughter in photographs, but similar discrepancies in the rates of aging are commonly found in families with centenarian members.^[8] Allard and Robine also pointed out the existence of numerous documents relating to Calment's activities throughout her life, and that the Russians brought no evidence forward to support their hypothesis.

After a meeting of the National Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) in Paris on 23 January 2019, French, Swiss, and Belgian longevity experts concluded that none of the Russian claimants provided any proof of an identity substitution, and they also announced that further research would be launched. The Washington Post, after consulting several experts, noted that "statistically improbable is not the same thing as statistically impossible". The Russian claims are generally dismissed by the overwhelming majority of scientists, finding the Russian paper to be "lacking, if not outright deficient". In September 2019, several French scientists, including Robine and Allard, released a paper in The Journals of Gerontology where they contest the various claims made by Zak and his colleagues and point out various inaccuracies in the paper. The team presented evidence to support Calment's age—including multiple official documents, census data, and photographic evidence—and also argued that it was indeed statistically possible to reach Calment's age. The authors criticised the advocates of the identity switch hypothesis, and called for a retraction of Zak's article.

In February 2020, Zak and Philip Gibbs published an assessment applying Bayes' theorem to the question of her authenticity, claiming "a 99.99% chance of an identity switch in the case of Mme Calment". François Robin-Champigneul and Robert Young commented on Zak's and Gibbs' findings, Robin-Champigneul noting that it "appears to be in fact a subjective and nonrigorous analysis" and Young that "[i]gnoring the actual facts of the case and stringing together opinions in a 'Bayesian' analysis are to merely misuse a mathematical tool". Young found that "a very solid case that Jeanne was 122 years has already been made" but that biosampling still was needed to test "for biomarkers of extraordinary longevity". Robin-Champigneul found that "the hypothesis of an identity swap with her daughter appears not even realistic given the context and the facts, and not supported by evidence.

Health and lifestyle...

Calment's remarkable health presaged her later record. On television she stated "J'ai jamais été malade, jamais, jamais" (I have never been ill, never ever). At age 20, incipient cataracts were discovered when she suffered a major episode of conjunctivitis.^[ She married at 21, and her husband's wealth allowed her to live without ever working. All her life she took care of her skin with olive oil and a puff of powder. At an unspecified time in her youth, she had suffered from migraines. Her husband introduced her to smoking, offering cigarettes (or cigars) after meals, but she did not smoke more. ("After the meal, after just one, I'd had enough of it".) Calment continued smoking in her elderly years, until she was 117.  At "retirement age" she broke her ankle, but before that had never suffered any major injuries. She continued cycling until her hundredth birthday. Around age 100, she fractured her leg, but recovered quickly and was able to walk again.

After her brother, her son-in-law and her grandson died in 1962–63, Calment had no remaining family members. She lived on her own from age 88 until shortly before her 110th birthday, when she decided to move to a nursing home Her move was precipitated by the winter of 1985 which froze the water pipes in her house (she never used heating in the winter) and caused frostbite to her hands. According to one of her doctors, she had been quite healthy until she moved to the nursing home, and only began showing signs of ageing during her stay.

Daily routine...

After her admission to the Maison du Lac nursing home in January 1985, aged 109, Calment initially followed a highly ritualized daily routine. She requested to be waked at 6:45 am, and started the day with a long prayer at her window, thanking God for being alive and for the beautiful day which was starting. She sometimes loudly asked the reason for her longevity and why she was the only one alive in her family. Seated on her armchair, she did gymnastics wearing her stereo headset. Her exercises included flexing and extending the hands, then the legs. Nurses noted that she moved faster than other residents who were 30 years younger. Her breakfast consisted of coffee with milk and rusks.

She washed herself unassisted with a flannel cloth rather than taking a shower, applying first soap, then olive oil and powder to her face. She washed her own glass and cutlery before proceeding to lunch. She enjoyed daube (braised beef) but was not keen on boiled fish. She had dessert with every meal, and said that given a choice she would eat fried and spicy foods instead of the bland foods on the menu.^[ She made herself daily fruit salads with bananas and oranges. She enjoyed chocolate, sometimes indulging in a kilogram (2.2 lb) per week. After the meal, she smoked a Dunhill cigarette and drank a small amount of port wine. In the afternoon, she would take a nap for two hours in her armchair, and then visit her neighbors in the care home, telling them about the latest news she had heard on the radio. At nightfall, she would dine quickly, return to her room, listen to music (her poor eyesight preventing her from enjoying her crosswords pastime), smoke a last cigarette and go to bed at 10:00 pm. On Sundays she went to Mass, and on Fridays to Vespers, and regularly conversed with and sought help from God, and wondered about the afterlife.

Medical follow-up...

Medical student Georges Garoyan published a thesis on Calment when she was 114 years old in January 1990. The first part records her daily routine, and the second presents her medical history. She stated that she had been vaccinated as a child but could not remember which vaccine(s). Apart from aspirin against migraines she had never taken any medicine, not even herbal teas. She did not contract German measles, chickenpox, or urinary infections, and was not prone to hypertension or diabetes. In April 1986, aged 111, she was sent to a hospital for heart failure and treated with digoxin. Later she suffered from arthropathy in the ankles, elbows, and wrists, which was successfully treated with anti-inflammatory medication. Her arterial blood pressure was 140mm/70mm, her pulse 84/min. Her height was 150 cm (4 ft 11 in), and her weight 45 kg (99 lb), showing little variation from previous years. She scored well on mental tests, except on numeric tasks and recall of recent events.

Analyses of her blood samples were in normal ranges between ages 111–114, with no signs of dehydration, anemia, chronic infection or renal impairment. Genetic analysis of the HLA system revealed the presence of the DR1 allele, common among centenarians. A cardiological assessment revealed a moderate left ventricular hypertrophy with a mild left atrial dilatation and extrasystolic arrhythmia. Radiology revealed diffuse osteoporosis, as well as incipient osteoarthritis in the right hip. An ultrasound exam showed no anomalies of internal organs. At this stage, Calment was still in good health, and continued to walk without a cane. She fell in January 1990 (aged 114) and fractured her femur, which required surgery. Subsequently, Calment used a wheelchair, and she abandoned her daily routine.

At the age of 115, Calment attracted the attention of researchers Jean-Marie Robine and Dr. Michel Allard, who collaborated with her attending doctor, Dr. Victor Lèbre, to interview her, verify her age and identify factors promoting her longevity. According to their year-long analysis, Calment's vision was severely impaired by bilateral cataracts, yet she refused to undergo a routine operation to restore her eyesight; she had a moderately weak heart, a chronic cough ("caused no doubt by her previous use of tobacco"), and bouts of rheumatism. On the other hand, her digestion was always good, she slept well, and did not have incontinence. During the last years, she was 137 cm (4 ft 6 in) tall, and weighed 40 kg (88 lb); she confirmed that she had always been small, and had lost weight in recent years. Her eyes were light grey, and her white hair had once been chestnut brown.

At the age of 118, she was submitted to repeated neurophysiological tests and a CT scan. The tests showed that her verbal memory and language fluency were comparable to those of persons with the same level of education in their eighties and nineties. Frontal brain lobe functions were relatively spared from deterioration, and there was no evidence of progressive neurological disease, depressive symptoms or other functional illness. Her cognitive functioning was observed to improve slightly over the six-month period. Calment reportedly remained "mentally sharp" until the end of her life.

Supercentenarian clinical study...

Bertrand Jeune, Robine, and other researchers compared Jeanne Calment with nearly 20 people worldwide who had been verified to have reached at least 115 years of age. They concluded that the lives of these people differed widely and that they had just a few common traits: most of them were female (only two were male), most smoked little or not at all, and they had never been obese. They all had exhibited strong characters, but not all were domineering personalities. Although they aged slowly, all became very frail and their physical fitness declined markedly, especially after age 105. In their final years, they required wheelchairs and were nearly blind and deaf. "But they did not fear death, and they appeared to be reconciled to the fact their lives would soon end.

Death...

Calment died of unspecified causes^[ on 4 August 1997 around 10 a.m. The New York Times quoted Robine as stating that she had been in good health, though almost blind and deaf, as recently as a month before her death.

I could have bought "The House Of The Rising Sun," --- maybe...

 ***I COULD HAVE BOUGHT "THE HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN," --- MAYBE...

It was on Esplanade Avenue, was what is known as a double-gallery house, --- with a balcony on the second floor, sort of like the one pictured below... >>>

Yes, we all know that folk song, but "The House Of The Rising Sun," I believe, or I chose to believe, WAS an actual place, or rather, --- "a house," a brothel in New Orleans. Folklore has it that about four old houses in New Orleans can claim to be the original "House Of The Rising Sun"...

Well, I was just casually browsing the internet on day when I ran up against an ad for a gorgeous, old southern mansion on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans. Hardly being serious, and mostly just-for-fun, I called the real estate number. The good old boy who answered had the thickest southern accent I'd ever heard. He assured me that if I came down to Louisiana he'd not only show me the house, but he wine & dine me; I'd have a wonderful time!!!...

"How do you figure that the house for sale might be the original 'House Of The Rising Sun',?" I asked. "Uh," he replied, "it's in the right area, historically, and it has an absolutely huge living room and dining room or parlor. Upstairs are six tiny bedrooms and a big bathroom. It also has a cottage in the back of the driveway.

If it wasn't THE 'House Of The Rising Sun', it very probably WAS once a pretty fancy bordello."

Ummm... Perhaps, he was just trying to sell a house... Anyway, he told me that the house was close (walking distance) to the famous Fairgrounds where many festivals were held, including the gigantic annual jazz festival. I was planning to use the house as a bed & breakfast, and with it's location, I knew that I could ask a high price for the rooms, and very probably get it when the festivals occurred...

BUT, buying it would mean a big, BIG move and BIG risk. I would have had to sell just about everything I owned TOO! In the end, I decided NOT to do it, NOT to buy what MIGHT have been "The House Of The Rising Sun", --- "...that had been the ruin of many a poor girl, - or poor boy..."

***Chapter 6 from my novelette, --- "The Saucy Sweethearts Of Storyville"...

   The back porch door, the door to the mud room of Lulu White's Mahogany House, was painted "haint" blue, --- that is, "haint," as in "haunt," or ghost. The beautiful very cheerful blue was supposed to keep ghosts away. This was a common door color in the deep South. 

   Yvonne Abbott was now on that porch with little Glory Blodgett. Yvonne was playing with the curly coated white puppy Shortbread, --- with Shortbread's floppy ears. The dog obviously loved this and was yipping and panting enthusiastically.

   Glory leaned back against the porch post. She was taking a breather from her chores. She'd just hanged two rows of damp white pantaloons on the clothes lines. Yvonne was wearing white pantaloons too now, a white blouse and black stockings and shoes. She was one of the more modest dressers at Lulu White's, and also one of the more early risers. Perhaps, that was because Yvonne wasn't as popular as most of the other girls, and didn't keep such late hours.. She wasn't outstandingly pretty or very flirty and was considered to be a bit of a bluestocking, --- a literary bore. After all, if gentlemen wanted to discuss books they would hardly be coming to Mahogany Hall!

   Yvonne frowned. "I think it's just terrible the way Miss Lulu tolerates rough handling of us girls if the price is right!"

   "Yeah, it's awful, alright." Glory sighed. "You know what Miss Lulu always says, --- "if they're rich enough, they're welcome!" Glory didn't want any part of growing up to be a 'fancy woman," even though she'd been born in a whorehouse and had never known who her father was, only that he'd been a wealthy "free man of color;" it was rumored it was Cecil Marjory, who thought it a "novel idea" to "take" again and again her mother, the house's laundress Selma, --- for free, and in his spare time, when he wasn't "with the regular young ladies". (And, Selma didn't dare refuse or complain.) 

   Lulu White had always liked hard working Selma and didn't even consider throwing her out when it became obvious that Selma was pregnant. (Selma had so much white blood that she absolutely looked white; her hair was even straight, but she wasn't white, not really. (There was an unfair, but unwritten law in the deep South that if you had one tiny smidgen of negro blood, it was if you were all negro. It was just the way it was, and this "law" kept many, many deserving women downtrodden.) 

   So, Selma was like a lot of the women at Mahogany house; --- she had just a "tiny touch". And, it happened that Selma adored children and often looked after any of the children at Mahogany House, of which there were five, the offspring of girls who were very, very popular, and refused to work for Madame Lulu, UNLESS they could keep their "kids" with them. So, Madame Lulu, huffing mightily and swearing under her breath about "spoiled little cuties,", --- agreed. 

   Yes, it was so true, Selma had always been "extremely decent," and when big, cheerful Pete Blodgett, who worked on the railroad at the dangerous job of "hitcher," asked her to marry him, she readily accepted. What followed was five happy years, until wonderful Pete bled to death after he slipped under one of the train's cars and both his thighs were run over. Then, Selma took on her usual sad expression and put her efforts to "raising up" Gloriana to be a "fine young woman". Gloriana wanted more than anything in life to be independent and a school teacher. But, her mama Selma told her, --- "No chance of THAT happening, Sugar Plum! You'll do the laundry, just like me!" Still, Glory had her wild dreams, --- dreams that refused to die. 

   Since her birth could be called an injustice, it had been drummed into Glory form her earliest years that things happened that were not, not ever, a person's fault. Yes, a person's whole life could be not their fault! So, Glory was very angry that Pierre Ozanne had so badly beaten Charlezza, especially since Charlezza had always treated Glory as if she mattered, --- something that was rare at Mahogany House, where Glory was hardly noticed at all. (This was probably the main reason for Glory's extreme shyness,) 

   Of course, Yvonne had Glory's everlasting gratitude, --- FOREVER, --- because Yvonne, on the sly, had taught bright and eager Glory to read. Selma could read a little, with difficulty, from lack of practice, thinking that reading was a "fancy" skill, one that "didn't put bread in your mouth!" At least, that's what Selma said to Glory every time she saw Glory with her head in a "foolish book". (And, those reading times, for Glory, were few since her chores kept her busy almost from the time she rose in the morning, till the time she dropped, exhausted, onto her pallet in the back of Mahogany House's big kitchen. 

   Glory scowled, "That Pierre is a rotten son-of-a-bitch!." she said, in her soft lispy voice. That lisp made anything Glory said sound not at all serious, and even had folks laughing outright at her. Naturally, this made Glory's shyness worse, worse than ever. 

   Yvonne put Shortbread down on the porch floor and the puppy waddled off. "Hush, now, Glory! You better not let your mama catch you talking like that!"

   "I know... She'll say it's trashy. But, --- Pierre IS a-son-of-a-bitch! You saw Charlezza's poor face! Doc Blake says her eye may not ever even look the same! It's all dragged down! And, --- and, Charlezza says her seeing out of that eye is real bad too!"

   "I know. I know!" Yvonne chewed her lip.

   Glory slammed her palm down on the porch floor. "I, --- I, --- I wish that Pierre Ozanne and all men like him, --- I wish they were all dead!"

   Yvonne gasped. "You better not let anybody but me hear you say that! Don't you ever say that again! You know what Mama Lorraine says, --- "Some words have power like knives!"

   Glory squinted her light green eyes, "I thought you don't believe in, --- in no hoodoo."

   "You mean magical words?"

   Flory just looked stubborn, lifted her chin. "Did I say anything about hoodoo?" Yvonne put her hands on her hips. "But, are you still going to see Mama Lorraine in her shop over there on Bourbon Street, the one behind the red silk curtain of  'Tippy-Tops's Bar'?"

   Glory lifted her chin even higher. "So what if I am? Mama Lorraine's real interesting... She, --- she knows PLENTY OF THINGS!

   "I'm sure she does, but they're forbidden things, Glory! Your mother has warned and warned you about hoodoo! You know Mama Lorraine and her brother Philo are root doctors! They do a lot of magic, and not all their magic is of the 'good" kind, either!"

    "Black magic,.. I KNOW! I KNOW!"

   "You REALLY know, Glory?'

   "Mama Lorraine and Papa Philo are, are,--- they go to church every Sunday! And, their brothers Trust and Truth go with them, --- uh, the older twin brothers, --- the whole family goes, every single Sunday!"

   "Now, you know, Glory, that hoodoo, and voodoo have strong connections to the Catholic church! The fact that they go to church doesn't mean a thing! Some of the nastiest people I know are very regular church goers!"

   "You mean like Sophia Mc Finney and Hestie Hunter."

   "Oh, you know them too..."

   "Ha, --- who don't who lives here? Miss Lulu had the police chasing them away from the front step of this house more than once, with their yelling and sermonizing, ---, messing with us!"

   Yvonne laughed. "You remember when Iona hung out the window bare-breast and waved her nipples at them!"

   "And, Hestie and Sophia took out a complaint at the police station..."

   "...Which Chief Of Police Vern O' Grady totally ignored..."

   Well, fooling around, annoying stiff-butt ladies is just something we do... It's kinda fun, in a way,,, But, --- Mama Lorraine's daughter, Nayelle; they call her Nonnie. She's some serious scary! She's got that corn-yellow hair and wild-ass blue eyes!"

   "Glory, --- your mouth!"

   "Well... I never seen a mixed person with eyes like that! Mama Lorraine says she's 'special," meaning she's, --- she's 'touched'! She's real light too, light as a white person, with that pinky skin!" 

   "So?... I'm light like that."

   "But, you got brown eyes!"

   "And, your's are pale green. So what? Maybe, --- well... She's probably just an albino."

   "I don't know! That little girl is real, REAL strange, the way she looks at you! It's real, real spooky!"

   "I read that albinos have poor eyesight, often. That's all. The sunshine bothers them a lot.""

   "I KNOW!"

   "You do?... You keep saying you do KNOW , --- BUT, you DON'T KNOW!... It sounds like you're very, very superstitious, Glory! Me, --- I believe in the power of knowledge, and words, --- in books, the wise things recorded in books, --- not in a bunch of silly folk magic!"

   "Oh, right." Glory nodded, jumping up. "Right. Sure, --- wise words, in books... Words sure are powerful, Yvonne! That's what I always say, --- always!"

   Yvonne screwed up her face, as if she didn't believe Glory, for one minute. And, behind her skinny back Glory's fingers were crossed, a sign that she had no intention of changing her mind about how she felt about the rotten Pierre Ozanne, or men like him, and the usefulness of magic.  

--- Copyright by Antoinette Beard/Sorelle Sucere, 2021.