Learning Can Be Embarrassing

It’s not so unusual to learn more about people as we spend more time with them.

What’s strange is to learn new things about family members we’ve known, well, forever.
That’s just what happened at Mom’s house on Thanksgiving night.
Mom decided to play a game of sorts. She had questions about members of the family and we had to figure out which person fit the description. For various reasons, there were only 19 of us gathered this year, which means 15 were elsewhere.
The first question was: Who got into trouble for breaking the rules while in college? The correct answer was “Mom.”

When she attended Columbia College in the 40s, it was still an all-girls’ school and there were all kinds of restrictions. For example, the girls were not allowed to ride in a private car.
One day, Mom and her friend Mabel signed out at school to go into downtown Columbia. They rode the city bus into town. When it was time to return, it was pouring rain, yet they went to the bus stop to wait for a ride back to campus. A black limousine stopped and they were offered a ride back to campus. It was the governor of South Carolina, Olin D. Johnston, with his chauffeur! Of course, they accepted the ride and were thrilled to do so, not just because of the weather but because this was the governor.
The two girls were put on restriction for a week for riding in a private car!
Most of us already knew the story but it turned out that “Mom” wasn’t the only answer to the question about who got into trouble for breaking rules while in college. Several fit that category!
Another question had to do with which person spent the night sleeping in a vehicle in downtown Charleston.

On this one, Mom learned something about one or more of her children that she hadn’t known – and we found out that the real question should have been which person has spent the most nights sleeping in a vehicle in downtown Charleston! Or, who most recently spent the night sleeping in a vehicle in downtown Charleston?

Sister-in-law Catherine used to make and deliver pizzas for Domino’s; sister-in-law Pat is a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants; nephew-in-law Bryan, who is a wrestling coach and looks the part, used to play violin in the middle school orchestra but two others in the family have played stringed instruments other than the guitar.
And there were some pretty gross and embarrassing things we learned. Maybe I’ll share those another time – and maybe not!

sister-in-law Catherine - sister-in-law Pat