A Story for Fans of Old Hollywood & French Cinema..

My grandmother on my father's side was a fan of old Hollywood, just not a fan of b-movies. Here's why.

My great-grandmother Claire came to the U.S. from Brittany after WWI with my very young grandmother, married and settled in Amboy Il.. It is important to know the Amboy area to understand the time and local history.

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Amboy&state=IL

In Amboy my grandmother Willamene lived a normal life. She went to school and church, and spoke french with her mother in the home. In 1928 on a sunday school trip to the nearby town of Grand Detour she made a BIG splash with a handsome young lifeguard/aspiring writer. The splash she made actually spanned across a few early chapters in the young man's life. Such romances are the classic motivation for smart young men to learn the language of the families of young ladies so as to win the favor of their mothers.

It was near the end of 1968 in my grandmother's kitchen on TRIPP ave. in the Chicago south suburb of Oak lawn, after discussing election results posted in the Chicago Sun Times and a summer family assignment for the State of Illinois monitoring student activity at the Democratic National Convention- in order to understand the sum total of the years political events- that the subject of this story came up. My grandmother told me that the young man even wanted a song for them, so my grandmother said she wrote one on the spot, right then. And so the young man told her that she was a "swift tailor". She sang me the song, and even today it seems that I can still hear every word, as if it happened yesterday.

Taylor Swift
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6s5cxBN8mA

But as it happens so often, young men get restless, and as a result young ladies get their feelings hurt....

Before he cheats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSG4Cml7HXs

and then because of the result, as it also happens so often, sad young men repent, plead, ...

Wedding bell blues
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkMhWQgkZ8c

Billy don't be a hero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDq_xJlF0TE

...and their pleas fail. So it was that my grandmother's best friend introduced her to her brother, my grandfather, who worked in his father's store. They had come from Poland after WWI, and so my grandfather spoke Polish with his parents growing up.

And this is why my Grandmother was not a fan of b-movies...

As Paul Harvey would say.."now you know the REST..."