So said my grandmother to my grandfather oh so many years ago.
I spent the weekend traipsing the meadows, woods, and brooks of Colebrook, CT where in 1787 my great (times 3 or 4?) grandfather built the Phelps Inn, a colonial tavern and family home for generations.
It's a magical, enchanting place. Frequented, I'm sure, by my ancestors' passing spirits in the fashion of the inn's guests who came and went centuries ago.
Tacked to the wall inside the bar, alongside the wall of mini liquor bottles (many labels long out of make), still hangs a note my grandmother wrote, decades before my birth.
"I never want any further part of GIN; I'm tired of it. *
(signed) Nancy Phelps Blum
Witnessed: (1) Peri (Mama)
(2) Carrington Phelps (Papa)
(3) J.A. Blum 10/2/45
* This means I don't want any more."
I can't help but romanticize my grandmother (she who attended round table discussions at the Algonquin with Dorothy Parker and Harold Ross, wrote two books on her family history, and built a barn to house her astounding collection of books, yet never attended college) regardless of whatever wonderful imperfections plagued her.
Oh, how the vices of the past gleam and sparkle with class, rich with elegance and mystery, when today we kill ourselves over the tiniest fault.
(Anna emailed me this image, but I found it here.)
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