I was scanning the “What’s Going On” column (otherwise known as Facebook) in the local paper stocked here at the Peanut Butter Cafe & Roadhouse and see that a friend of mine is in New Orleans with her husband and dining at Antoine’s. I have an old, old menu from there, courtesy of my Great Great Aunt Sara who lived the latter part of her life in that city.

I don’t think Aunt Sara had red hair until the day she died, but it was probably close. Aunt Sara always had red hair; well, maybe not as a girl or young woman, but from when I first met her when I was close to one and she was about 71. She was about three years older than my grandmother, being the youngest sister of Grandma’s father. So, in fact, they grew up more as sisters than aunt and niece – Sarah and Jessie. Both became teachers at the turn of the century – you know, the one before this one – but Aunt Sara parted with her “H” and Grandma remained Jessie.

Though Grandma had been at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904, she didn’t travel much more and married and had a daughter. When that daughter was one, Aunt Sara, who was teaching in Kalamazoo, married an Encylcopedia Britannica salesman and traveled around the United States with him and . . . then, well, let’s just say there are lots of stories.

Should my friend who dined in Antoine’s be reading this, I must assure her that she and her husband probably blended in better than Aunt Sara. I can’t remember if I told her about my Aunt Sara or not – such as the time she had a big hat before (1915) that she couldn’t wear comfortably in my grandma’s old Buick, so she rode all the way into town with her head out the window. Fortunately, cars chugged along much slower then.