Aunt Gertrude

Aunt Gertrude was an old Sonoma resident.  She had her own spot at the Swiss Hotel in the square at the bar.  Everybody greeted her by name.  She was a staple there for many, many years. Aunt Gertrude lived survived the flu epidemic of the WWI era, lived through the Great Depression, and then experienced WWII.  She was a walking American history book. 

I loved Aunt Gertrude.  She had a bitey sense of humor and called everything like she saw it.  She would also make fun of just about everybody.  One of her favorite targets were the 'linen people' who began to proliferate Sonoma County when they figured out how cute, quaint, "organic" and charming Sonoma County was and began to invade. 

This brought out Aunt Gertrude's claws as she hated fake people with a passion.  She would laugh at the "organic" food hunters at the local fruit and vegetable stands who would show up on their bikes with little food baskets thinking they were getting "farm fresh, organic vegetables" from the local goodness of the earth. 

Aunt Gertrude would describe on how the commercial food trucks would arrive in Sonoma at 4:30 AM from San Francisco staging the "farm fresh organic food stand" charade.  Food stand operators laughed all the way to the bank.... dumb city slicker yuppies.... put just about anything in a pretty, straw basket display and label it as "organic" out on a country road and the linen people will pay triple the price.  It's really the same stuff you get at FoodMaxx.

Too bad Aunt Gertrude died before she could set up her own "organic" food stand.