One part I didn't even go into, yet

[DFW]

My wife's mother, who will be 91 this September, and whose health is not the best, came down here to the Rheinland with my wife this afternoon, and is very excited to be a GREAT-grandmother. It's given her a new will to live a little longer, so she can live to speak with a descendant she thought she'd never live to see. I know my grandfather was proud as hell of his two great-granddaughters (my two girls) that were equally proud to have a great-grandfather until they were 13 and 11. We practically had to threaten a diplomatic incident before the German school system gave them a special dispensation to go to his 100th birthday in America, taking 2 days off of school.

I had a great-grandmother until I was 19, and she was one of the coolest women I ever knew. She let nothing stop her but the Grim Reaper himself. On my first trip to Europe, she found that she would be in London at the same time I would be, and invited me to join her and a few girlfriends for afternoon tea at her hotel. You can imagine the "propah" English butlers at the door giving me their "yeah, sure" look when I told them I was there to join Mrs. so-and-so for tea. But they did check, in case the old Yank lady really did have a great-grandson in London, and politely escorted me to her table when they heard I was legit. Very funny scene, a table with four or five 80-somethings and 16 year old me in blue jeans! We did get a stare or two (OK, more like a hundred).