District of Columbia

... she used to go to branches to figure out who was defalcating bank funds.

At home, we referred to her as "the Snake" - she could get her slipper off, whack you and get it back on before you knew what hit you.

She was well loved by us six kids and 28 grand children and made it to 90 before passing very quickly and painlessly of cancer.

She like my grandmother were tough, but gentile women. My mother was born fifty years too early. She have done even better in a more equal time.

A great sense of humor: once my dad (who has an extremely casual relationship with electricity) we moving and wiring in a fountain in the back yard. I asked if he had flipped the breaker. And as soon as he said "if you only touch one wire, you're safe" he took a serious zap.

When we went into house for lunch, he said to my mother - "you'll never guess what happened to me!"
She said, "you got shocked."
"Who squealed?"
"You did. I heard you clear in the living room."

The lesson for me now is: man, it still hurts!

I got yelled at by my wife for riding my big KZ1000 standing on the seat in front of my daughters. A few weeks later I took my girls to the shop to get some parts. As I'm talking to the parts guy, I hear, "Hey daddy! Look at us!"

I turn around and there they are in the show room standing on the seats of two dirt bikes.

The youngest was a quiet dare devil and still is to some degree. She went to UT/Corpus Christi before deciding marine archeology was more interesting than Oceanography. One of her jobs was to put on scuba tanks and hand feed the sharks. The female sharks would not tolerate males in the tank with them. My youngest, about five-five and 100lbs loved a challenge.

She graduated from A&M summa cum laude, and the eldest graduated summa cum laude from St Edwards in Austin, taught school for some years and then taught banking software for a developer and has taken a left turn and is the IT head for a hospital in St Augustine.

My son has done very well, too. I'd say how well but I am starting to get into bragging territory.

Life has been very, very good to me. Could have been killed by my stupidity any number of times. No brag.