My mother passed in 1988, at about 1 month before she would have hit 60. She was born in a village in Quebec called St. Andre Avlin, and she grew up in the mining town of Noranda. At age 14 she won a chess championship for the whole province, beating a bunch of old men. They got so mad they didn't award her the cash prize but gave her a silver dollar coin instead. Except for her last months she was an implacable force of slaughter on the chess board. If they are somehow all together she's probably taking on Rommel or Belisarius or Zukhov in some other dimension now...
She lived 35 yrs in the US on a green card, and she'd often drive like hell. They could write tickets, which she'd pay, but her license was out of Quebec Province so none of the stateside police or state troopers could take it away. They sometimes took the little CARD away, (and make Dad or someone else drive the rest of the trip) but when we got home she'd call some number in Quebec and say she'd lost the card in the sofa or something and they's send her a replacement license in the mail.
Seriously, she was just about on a first name basis with most of the staties in NH and VT along rt I-93 and I-89. She would always mash the pedal coming out of the Hooksett toll booth (to try to beat the gate after the coins drop in - and sometimes we'd get the bell to ring) and one time she blew a radiator hose. The cruiser pulls up behind her from the toll and says "Why, Hello Mrs. [....]" and Dad was like "Um, who is this guy?" The officers says, "We meet somewhat often, and I recognize the car."
I think the fastest she ever drove (for a short stretch) was close to 140 or maybe a little over - on the Quebec Rt 20, she was trying to pass a Jaguar XJS and she was getting mad that her 6.9L turbo Trans Am wasn't catching up...
Then we all had a Station Wagon (1970s!) a Lincoln Mercury Colony Park with a 460 in it. One day she took the cone top off the air filter cover and put it on upside down (so it looked more like a header) and said "Let's see if I get more power with it this way..." We blew on up to Quebec City and she was a little over 100 in some places and the computer said we were getting 6mpg.
She was also a very good winter driver and taught me a lot of good techniques for hills and curves in ice, freezing rain, and slush. Sometimes we would get passed and if the driver didn't look smooth to her, she'd say 'That guy's a nut - watch for him' and sure enough we'd see the car spun out in the median within 5 or 10 miles...
And I inherited her French and French-Canadian cookbooks with her hand written margin notes and all those delicious traditional recipes that will punch your ticket too by age 59...
THANK YOU, MOM!
