I was born into lines of brilliant women. My great-great grandmother went to court in the 19th Century to challenge the presumption that only primogeniture applied, 7 decades before women's suffrage came to Kentucky. My great grandmother, an Acadian, made a childhood trek in the 19th Century from Petit-Rocher, Nouvelle Brunswick to Milton, MA. My paternal grandmother, from Liberty, KY, had awesome social skills, along with her daughter -- if a great celebrity visited the Bluegrass, they would be sitting in a place of honor on the dais. One time, my grandmother got a ride in the POTUS' car in a pre-Dallas motorcade. My maternal grandmother was the kindest person I have ever known, but she could navigate Boston, MA, as though it were a playground. I got my lack of fear of urban transit from her. I got my love of big cities from her. My mother was a poet, and a grandly independent woman. Both of my daughters are geniuses -- one a computer scientist and the other a hydrologist with 3 degrees. One of my granddaughters is a brilliant flautist and straight-A student. My second granddaughter, just now a teen, is a wondrous wit, a scoring machine at basketball, a thespian, and a blistering finisher in cross-country running. The youngest granddaughter, eleven, also a thespian, has the greatest sense of humor of all, the social skills of her great-great grandmother, and a natural overflowing confidence. My great-granddaughter, five, is brimming with charm and brightness. Why would any good man wish that they were trapped in a class that was deemed second-rate?
-- Kilgore Forelle
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