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Frances Perry

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Today is my grandmother’s

Birthday

She made it to 92

Not bad in my family

She thought Excedrin for pain

And a banana once a day

Were good for long life,

Otherwise living each day

With whatever

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She had agendas—don’t

We all—but

She might have been

A simple person

Driven by impulse

That life in the Depression drove

Also by other, better life

Secured

After

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She was the one I knew

Her husband was a good man

Who died when I was

A teen

And everyone was gone by then

Now the parents’ generation, too,

For some time now

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My siblings

Have had to forge their anchors

And to cast them on their own

In hopeful waters

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I’d say they’ve done well,

While I record

Some things

About them all

About us all

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Remember to

Set down your stories,

Too

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C L Couch

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“Migrant family from Arkansas playing hill-billy songs. Farm Security Administration emergency migratory camp. Calipatria, California” 1939

By Dorothea Lange – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4450129

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