Aunt Rita at 79

Happy Birthday to Aunt Rita, who makes every family gathering livelier, funnier and happier.

To Aunt Rita, who when she found a small gift box with a beautiful ribbon around it in an

aisle at Famous-Barr, pocketed it and went on her way. Later, she realized someone must have

had a big laugh when they saw her pick it up because when she opened it in her car she found a

chunk of dog poop.

Happy Birthday to Aunt Rita, who has had more jobs than any three other people put

together, including flight attendant, model, real estate agent, hostess and court liaison. At one

point in her life she was going to be a court reporter but decided against it when the apparatus

kept falling on the floor.

Happy Birthday to Aunt Rita who had to raise four boys on her own

during the week and on the week end she added another. Happy Birthday to Aunt Rita, who

at times needed to get away. Unfortunately, she had to take four of the five boys with her!

Happy Birthday to Aunt Rita who can tell the best stories ever, with enough embellishment

to make you laugh until your sides hurt and your eyes water. And right up there with funny stories is her enthusiasm for shopping. I used to love it when Aunt Rita would take us "girl shopping" when we were young (prom dresses) and not so young (the Barn).

And, of course, Happy Birthday to Aunt Rita, who so many years ago sat on the living room

floor in our house on Tholozan, looked dramatically over her shoulder, and coined the

phrase that now belongs to the ages: "Our family has always been in show business."

Movie Quotes

Yesterday, I was thinking about some of my favorite quotations from movies. It was Clint

Eastwood's 80th birthday and TCM was showing "Dirty Harry," which I had never seen. The

mentioned that "Are you feeling lucky" came in around 50 on the AFI list of memorable

quotes and "Make my day" came in at number 6.

Probably my favorites never even made it to the Institute's top 100, but I like them.

One is from "Mr. Roberts." After Mr Roberts (Henry Fonda) expresses his disappointment

in Ensign Pulver (Jack Lemmon) because he never sees any great ideas through. Roberts

accuses, what ever happened to the idea to put marbles in the Captain's overhead. Pulver,

extremely hurt, goes to his locker and takes a band-aid container out and shakes it

with vigor. "I'm looking for marbles all the time!"

In "No Time for Sergeants" Will admonishes his buddy (Nick Adams) to be nice to the

obnoxious Norman, because "he's had ROTC and they don't know how to cure it."

I'll end this short list with my most favorite. Grandfather takes Little Big Man up on

a mountain where he plans to die because life has become incongruent to him. He lays

down and says, "It is a good day to die." A fairly long time passes and it starts to rain on

Grandfather and eventually gets up and tells Little Big Man, "Sometimes the magic

works and sometimes it doesn't." They descend the mountain.

Oh, wait, two more of my very favorites come from one movie: "My Man Godfrey."

After William Powell sits Carol Lombard in a shower and turns on the cold water,

she comes out into her room chanting, "Godfrey loves me. Godfrey loves me" She

begins to jump on her bed continuing the chant. At the end of the picture, Lombard has

tracked Powell down to his "forgotten man" casino, bringing food and a judge to

marry them. Powell looks at the judge and attempts to question the inevitable and as the judge begins the ceremony, she takes his hand and says, "Don't worry Godfrey, it will all be over in a little while."