Conan and Aunt Winnie

One of my NRO favorite's John J. Miller has piece in the Journal today about Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian. This, of course, reminded me of a crippled aunt from Pennsylvania.

She was a great aunt actually. The sister-in-law of my paternal grandfather. Her name was Winnie. I first met her in Canada. We were spreading her husband's ashes on a hillside next to the family's cabin - we were spreading them from a Hills Brother's Coffee can.

She was confined to a wheelchair. A hottie in her youth - I saw the pics - at about 30 her body started curling up from some severe arthritis. Years went by. She raised a family. A couple years before I met her - she was in her 70s then - she got stuck - actually stuck - the house. She couldn't get her wheelchair moving. While sitting there trying to pass the time until help came, she managed to pick up one of her grown son's old Conan the Barbarian book - she was addicted.

"They're just great," she said. "Lotsa killin' and fighting."

How do you not like a woman like that? When not reading her Conan books, she guilted me into playing scrabble.

Stay You.
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