Aunt Ruth wasn’t really an aunt at all, we just called her kin because she was more than kith to MawMaw. Her hair was fire engine red, and she always wore cat eye spectacles with a beaded chain that would hold them around her neck. She loved Jesus as any good country woman would and she knew how to behave herself in mixed company, but she liked to dip snuff and she cussed a little.

Aunt Ruth had grown up poor like everyone else in Sparta, Georgia, at that time, but she had managed to get by picking cotton and eventually got a job as a secretary for a businessman in town. She never took a sick day and held her boss man in the highest regard, as women were wont to do in those days. He had given her a job that didn’t require breaking her back in the fields; he had been the reason she didn’t have to worry about food on the table or paying a bill. She retired at 65, but continued to talk about what a nice man he was for the rest of her life.

Never married, she lived in a small A-frame house, always neat and tidy since there were no children. Her front porch was cute as could be—daisies in pots next to the porch swing with daffodils and hyacinth in a perfectly placed flower bed. She mostly came to visit with MawMaw at her house, but on the occasions that we visited her, we could always expect a treat out of her cookie jar. Ginger cookies were her favorite. And a cold Coca-Cola to wash it down with.

She liked to play gin rummy with MawMaw, and when they weren’t playing cards, they were looking at the Simplicity catalog and gushing about the outfits they’d like to make if they could just find the right material. Aunt Ruth was very stylish in my eyes, a very put-together lady, and she loved fashion.

“Ruth, you ought to make that dress. Might getchew a man in that ‘un!” MawMaw would say.

“I reckon it’s too late for me to get a man now, Louise.”

“Hogwash. Any woman your age still wearing heels and not a lick of gray hair? You’ve just got to wait for the right one to show up.”

“Louise, it’s called Clairol. You should getchew some. And I been waiting 83 years. If he shows up today, he sure don’t care about punctuality.”

“All in the Lord’s perfect timing.”

At 83 years old, Ruth didn’t really care anymore about finding a husband. She did, however, want a child of her own. I think she doted on us to make up for it, spending time with us playing dolls and having tea parties. She loved tea sets and had a large collection of them in her china cabinet at home. Since she didn’t have wedding china, she filled it with other things.

In those days, there was a filling station as you came into Milledgeville, just over the river bridge. A dashing young man named John worked there as an attendant, and it seemed that the station was always busiest during his shift. All the ladies’ cars ran low on gas at the same time, when he happened to be available to fill them up.

John had a head full of dark hair and stood tall at 6’1”. He kept his shirt sleeves rolled up to reveal his defined biceps, and the material across his chest pulled a bit at the buttons. His brawny physique came from early mornings on his father’s dairy farm, pulling calves, hauling hay, and anything else his parents needed him to do in lieu of paying for room and board. His Mama fed him a good meat-and-potatoes diet, and she prayed he would find a good Christian woman to do the same for him one day.

John wanted to go to college, so he saved every dime he made at the filling station. He had hoped that he would get a football scholarship somewhere, but senior year came and went and well… here he was.

In April of 1969, John had finally saved enough to pay for his first semester of school. He applied to the University of Georgia, saying a prayer over the envelope as he stamped it and placed it in the box at the post office. He had a plan. He would move in with his Uncle Horace and Aunt Christy in Watkinsville and work at his uncle’s auto repair shop until he could afford to move all the way into Athens on his own. Three weeks later, the mailman delivered a letter addressed to him from the Office of Admissions.

His mother laid it at the foot of his bed so he would see it when he came home. She had a bittersweet moment, thinking of him as a little boy, now grown up and moving off to start his own life. A life better than theirs, a life of more comfort and wealth. Her baby was going to be a college educated man.

With bated breath, John opened the envelope. “We regret to inform you…” it began. He laid down on his bed for a good long miserable hour, and then an indignant anger started to rise up within his chest. He sat up. The anger continued to rise like a fever into his head, and when it did, he stood up, took all the money he had—stored in a shoebox in the back of his closet—and stormed out the door. They didn’t want him at their school? Fine. He was going to buy him a motorcycle, dammit.

It was Aunt Ruth’s 84^th birthday. She got up at 4:45 a.m., as usual, and spent quiet time with the Lord on her mustard yellow settee in the sitting room. She propped her slippered feet up on the coffee table, turned to the Psalms and settled on number 37.

Trust in the Lord, and do good;

dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the Lord,

and He will give you the desires of your heart.

She made herself a breakfast of two eggs, a piece of smoked sausage, and grapefruit. She normally wasn’t so hungry first thing in the morning, but today she wanted a fortifying stick-to-your-bones kind of meal. She would skip lunch, she thought, and hold out for the big birthday dinner at MawMaw’s that evening.

She piddled around the house for awhile, watering her flowers, working on her cross stich sampler, and watching Andy Griffith. She decided she would go into town—it being her birthday after all—and finally get that pretty dark pink silky material she had been eyeing for months. It was expensive, but she couldn’t remember the last time she treated herself. She figured it was a good a day as any to splurge a little.

She pulled her Buick into the A&P parking lot first, remembering that she needed to replenish her coffee canister. When she got out of the car, she met John in the parking lot. He was coming out of the store with a brown bag concealing a six-pack of Schlitz beer.

“Hello, young man.”

“Hey Mrs. Ruth, how are you doing today?”

“I’m doing just fine, thank you. It’s my 84^th birthday. I’m happy to be seen and not viewed!”

John gave her a courteous chuckle. Then he got a notion. “Mrs. Ruth, how would you like to go for a ride on my new motorbike?”

“Oh, I don’t think so, sugar. I might fall off or something.”

“No ma’am, I wouldn’t dare let you fall off. Let me give you a ride. I just got it. 1969 Harley-Davidson.”

“Well…” She thought for a moment. She thought of her simple life and all the chances she hadn’t taken. She thought of her heart’s desires. “Why not!” she said to the handsome young twenty-one year old.

They rode for miles that afternoon. All over the county. Everyone they passed stared at them, puzzled. This old woman on the back of a motorcycle with her hands around the waist of the most eligible bachelor in town.

When he got to the river bridge, he accelerated, and she felt the bike lift in the front. “Yippee!” she cried in his ear. They felt a rush of wind, his dark hair waving freely and her perm and set gone to all hell. All at once, something radiated out of their chests and rose from their shoulders. John laughed. Ruth smiled and squeezed him tighter.