“I’m saying this is the South, and we’re proud of our crazy people. We don’t hide them up in the attic. We bring ’em right down to the living room and show ’em off. See, Phyllis, no one in the South ever asks if you have crazy people in your family. They just ask what side they’re on.”
Julia Sugarbaker
When I heard the above said on Designing Women something about it caught my ear, because in my family we don't hide our crazy people either.
Occasionally I find myself imagining the front porch of the Big House, my grandmother's home, with it's wooden porch swing and old fashioned chairs. I see my grandfather's first wife, a post Victorian nymphomaniac, who I never knew, but my great aunt has described in great detail. Next to her is my Great grandmother who thought she could make tables walk and my aunt who had conversations with my dead uncle while holding his hand when she went to bed. In the corner is my grandmother's first husband who liked to come home after a hard day's work, take off his clothes and get a little sun in the front yard.
It goes on, until I realize the front porch is full and I start putting them out on the side porch, the one with the green retro glider and matching rocking chairs. Here I see my brother who's, "Still alive dammit!" and my sister-in-law whose lovely country mansion is decorated in stacked wall to wall, floor to ceiling, early American flea market. Close by is my cousin who thinks he's the fifth Prince of the Universe, and my other aunt who used to send my father empty vials of water so he could examine the bugs she thought she pulled from her hair before she shaved her head. Behind them all stands my sister, a rug shampooer in each hand and fifteen empty milk jugs filled with mothballs.
After a while I realize we don't bring our crazy people down to the living room, or set them out on the front porch. They outnumber us and bring us out when they need to parade the family's sanity.
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