Since my foremothers & fathers climbed down out of the trees, into the caves, & eventually out to the suburbs , we have been a matriarchy. The women whose blood gallops through my veins have had strong, forceful personalities. My greatgrandmother, Krazy Kate Doyle, was almost shot by hunters as she rose up from the ground in her fur coat, after sleeping there for several hours. She later told her husband (#4), "It's a good thing I was drunk, I coulda died out there in the cold." Her daughter was the first woman in our county to get a driver's license. As soon as she got it, she threw 3 girlfriends into the car & went to Mardis Gras. I've never claimed they were noble, simply strong-willed.

The men are pampered & petted proudly, but they are also overruled on all major decisions. Since this has always been so, I assumed they were content with the arrangement. I believed that my own father was happy to be left out of the loop. I believed this until recently, when he (at the age of 81) reared up & became a patriarch. And there was my son, Mordred to his King Arthur, beside him, wringing his hands & wheeze-laughing. The two of them took advantage of my long illness & have overturned the family's system. If my daughter wasn't clowning around in Indiana, she could be here shoulder-to-shoulder with me, fighting them back to their easy chairs & complacency; silencing their opinions with brownies. I have one cousin who could also help me with this, but she tends to take after our greatgrandmother & is routinely found sleeping in odd places. She's of no help. I've been here alone & weak, so these men have had to actually opine on some meaty issues. They have tasted the intrinsic satisfaction of decision-making & they want more. They have a weird "I'm in charge" glow in their eyes.

You know & I know that I have been ill. It was necessary to give up some authority due to the nature of my illness, everyone understands that. However, the women who will have that same blood sloshing inside them many generations into the future will have no knowledge of all these details. They will only know me as "that bonehead who lost the matriarchy."