My friends John and Susan often visit a good friend of theirs who is known to me simply as “Aunt Helen”. She lives up in Virginia near the Shenandoah Valley, while John and Susan live in Indiana. But despite the distance they tend to get together quite often.

Recently they were in Southport, NC, and decided to swing by Pittsboro, and I was finally going to get to meet Aunt Helen at the General Store.

It was a nice day so I road the BMW, and when I pulled up they met me on the sidewalk. I had to provide a signal to John to indicate how I usually feel about photographs, but he took the picture anyway.

Aunt Helen was great, although she was a little quiet. Well, then again, everyone tends to be quiet next to me. She seemed to have a good time. As we left John wanted more pictures so I tried to recreate a somewhat famous picture of John and Susan (circa 1983). While I think they have a large one I had to copy it out of the yearbook, so excuse the quality.

Unfortunately, a few days after meeting her I found out that she will need heart surgery. It’s scheduled for the 29th and I am wishing her a rapid and painless recovery. One thing I know about Aunt Helen is that she’s a fighter, so she’ll pull through fine. She survived a meal with me at the table, after all.