I know it’s not Wordless Wednesday yet…

But I just had to post this photo of my 9 grandchildren sitting outside my mother-in-law’s (their great-grandmother’s) favorite restaurant, Jack’s, in Warren, Rhode Island. It was taken this past Sunday evening, the night before Flo’s 90th birthday.

Barry and I first went to Jack’s more than 33 years ago. We brought our grandmothers there. We brought our moms there. We brought kids there when they had to scoot up onto booster seats. We brought babies in car seats, who sometimes cried ’til we felt we needed to leave, but each time the owners and waitresses said, “Stay. This is a family restaurant.”

Jack’s is where Flo loved to go for fried smelts and steamers with lots of buttah and little necks on the half shell and antipasto and Jack’s Special Spaghetti with its clams, shrimp, herbs, spices and secret ingredients that make you smile. Jack’s is the last place that Flo went out to eat before she died. Barry and I took her and her wheelchair to her favorite restaurant and we had everything she loved, including a couple of beers. We had one of the most beautiful dinners of our lives. She would die less than 2 weeks later.

But… ah, the memories. Flo, this photo is for you, with love to infinity and beyond!