80 is the New 50 in my 'Hood

 If 80 sounds to you like an age when people should be rocking in chairs and taking  naps, there is someone I want you to meet.

 
Today is my friend Josie's 80th birthday.  She lives in the next block, in the house next door to her daughter's elegant Victorian, the Sugar Magnolia Bed and Breakfast.

Josie is one of the most intriguing characters I have ever met.  Born in the hills of Tennessee to a mother who died when she was very young, Josie describes her childhood keeping house for her father in the same terms used to define "indentured servitude."  In fact, it could be said that she had no childhood at all.

So, because of an unparalleled love of life combined with an energy level that puts mine to shame, Josie is living her childhood now. She drives around in a canary yellow 1979 Cadillac Coupe DeVille; wears one of her dozens of crazy hats at all times; loves baubles, bangles, beads and sequins -- the more the better -- and crashes parties without batting a lash.
Josie is an Inman Park legend and a force of nature.
It was only fitting that her daughter would organize a Surprise Parade and Party featuring the Kelly's Seed and Feed Marching Abominable Band, of which Josie is an enthusiastic  member. She is a pom-pom girl.


While Josie and her daughter's family were attending church at the Inman Park United Methodist Church, I, along with some 200 of her other closest friends, scrambled to put the food and beverages in place at the Sugar Magnolia and to assemble the band outside the church.  When the service was over, Josie opened the church door to see

That's Josie in the solid red suit, in the distant center.

Coqui and I joined the rest of the cheering crowd behind the band to march the quarter mile to the Sugar Magnolia,

 

Where the band played on and clowned around,

 

And Josie did what Josie does., every chance she gets:

Rock out, rock on!

Happy Birthday to Inman Park's Favorite Country Gal!