quot a good man is hard to find quot

Question and story below. Any questions or concerns regarding assignment please ask.

How would you characterize the grandmother? How does the story’s setting – including its time period – inform your understanding of her and of what seems important to her?

Find at least one quotation from the story that helps to support your answer and use proper MLA to cite it.

Title:

A Good Man is Hard to Find

Short story, 1955

Author(s):

Flannery O’Connor

American Writer ( 1925 – 1964 )

Other Names Used:

O’Connor, Mary Flannery;

Source:

The World’s Best Short Stories: Anthology & Criticism

. Vol. 3:

Famous Stories

.

The World’s Best

Series

Great Neck, NY: Roth Publishing, Inc., p34.

Document Type:

Short story

Full Text:

COPYRIGHT 1990 Roth Publishing, Inc.

Original Language:

English

Text :

THE GRANDMOTHER didn’t want to go to Florida. She wanted

to visit some of her connections in east Tennessee and she was

seizing at every chance to change Bailey’s mind. Bailey was the son she lived with, her only boy. He was sitting on the edge of

his

chair at the table, bent over th

e orange sports section of the

Journal

. “Now look here, Bailey,” she said, “see here, read this,” and she

stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. “Here this fellow that calls himself

The

Misfit is aloose from the Federal

Pen and headed toward Florida an

d you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you

read it.

I wouldn’t take my children in any direction with a criminal lik

e that aloose in it.

I couldn’t answer to

my conscience if I di

d.”

Bailey didn’t look up from his reading so

she wheeled around then and faced the childr

en’s mother, a young

woman in slacks, who

se

face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage

and was tied around w

ith a green head-kerchief that

had two points on the top like

rabbit’s ears. She was sitting on the sofa, feeding the baby his ap

ricots out of a jar. “The children have been to Florida befo

re,” the old

lady said. “You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad.

They

never have been to east Tennessee.”

The children’s mother didn’t seem

to hear her but the eight-year-old boy, John Wesley, a stocky child with glasses, said, “If y

ou don’t

want to go to Florida, why dontcha stay at home?” He and the

little girl, June Star, were reading the funny papers on the floor

.

“She wouldn’t stay at home to be queen for a day,” June Star said without raising her yellow head.

“Yes and what would you do if this fellow, The Misfit, caught you?” the grandmother asked.

“I’d smack his face,” John Wesley said.

“She wouldn’t stay at home for a million bucks,” June Star said

. “Afraid she’d miss something. She has to go everywhere we go.”

“All right, Miss,” the grandmother said. “Just remember

that the next time you want me to curl your hair.”

June Star said her hair was naturally curly.

The next morning the grandmother was the first one in the car, ready to go. She had her big black valise that looked like the h

ead of a

hippopotamus in one corner, and underneath it she was hiding a basket with Pitty Sing, the cat, in it. She didn’t intend for th

e cat to be

left alone in the house for thr

ee days because he would miss her

too much and she was afraid he

might brush against one of the

gas

burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself. Her son,

Bailey, didn’t like to arrive at a motel with a cat.

She sat in the middle of the back

seat with John Wesley and June Star on either

side of her. Bailey and

the children’s mother a

nd the

baby sat in front and they left Atlanta at eight forty-five with

the mileage on the car at 5589

0. The grandmother wrote this do

wn

because she thought it would be in

teresting to say how many miles

they had been when they got b

ack. It took them twenty minutes

to

reach the outskirts of the city.

The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in f

ront of

the back window. The children’s mother still had on slacks and still had her head tied up in a green kerchief, but the grandmot

her had

on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the p

rint. Her

collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at he

r neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets conta

ining a

sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead

on the highway woul

d know at once that she was a lady.

She said she thought it was going to be a good day for driving, neither too hot nor too cold, and she cautioned Bailey that the

speed

limit was fifty-five miles an hour and that the patrolmen hid th

emselves behind billboards and small clumps of trees and sped o

ut after

you before you had a chance to slow down. She pointed out interesting details of the scenery: Stone Mountain; the blue granite

that in

some places came up to both sides of the hi

ghway; the brilliant red clay

banks slightly streaked w

ith purple; and the various c

rops that

made rows of green lace-work on

the ground. The trees were full

of silver-white sunlight and th

e meanest of them sparkled. The

children were reading comic magazines a

nd their mother had

gone back to sleep.

“Let’s go through Georgia fast so we won’t have to look at it much,” John Wesley said.

“If I were a little boy,” said the grandmother, “I wouldn’t talk

about my native state that way. Tennessee has the mountains an

d Georgia

has the hills.”

“Tennessee is just a hillbilly dumping ground,” John Wesley said, “and Georgia is a lousy state too.”

“You said it,” June Star said.

“In my time,” said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fing

ers, “children were more respectful of their native states and

their

parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh look at the cute little pickaninny!” she said and pointed to a Negro chi

ld

standing in the door of a shack. “Wouldn’t that make a picture,

now?” she asked and they all turn

ed and looked at the little Ne

gro out

of the back window. He waved.

“He didn’t have any britches on,” June Star said.

“He probably didn’t have any,” the grandmother explained. “Little niggers in the country don’t have things like we do. If I cou

ld paint,

I’d paint that picture,” she said.

The children exch

anged comic books.

The grandmother offered to hold the baby and the children’s moth

er passed him over the front seat to her. She set him on her kn

ee and

bounced him and told him about the things they were passing. She rolled her eyes and screwed up her mouth and stuck her leather

y

thin face into his smooth bland one. Occasionally he gave her a

faraway smile. They passed a large cotton field with five or si

x graves

fenced in the middle of it, like a small island. “Look at the

graveyard!” the grandmother said, pointing it out. “That was the

old family

burying ground. That belonged to the plantation.”

“Where’s the plantation?” John Wesley asked.

“Gone With the Wind,” said the grandmother. “Ha. Ha.”

When the children finished all the comic

books they had brought, they opened the lunch and ate it. The grandmother ate a peanut

butter sandwich and an olive and would not let the children throw the box and the paper napkins out the window. When there was

nothing else to do they played a game by choosing a cloud and making the other two guess what shape it suggested. John Wesley t

ook

one the shape of a cow and June Star guesse

d a cow and John Wesley said, no, an automobile, and June Star said he didn’t play f

air,

and they began to slap each

other over the grandmother.

The grandmother said she would tell them a story if they would k

eep quiet. When she told a story,

she rolled her eyes and waved

her

head and was very dramatic. She said once wh

en she was a maiden lady she had been c

ourted by a Mr. Edgar Atkins Teagarden from

Jasper, Georgia. She said he was a very good-looking man and a gentleman and that he brought her a watermelon every Saturday

afternoon with his initials cut in it, E. A. T. Well, one Satu

rday, she said, Mr. Teagarden brought the watermelon and there wa

s nobody

at home and he left it on the front porch and returned in his buggy to Jasper, but she never got the watermelon, she said, beca

use a

nigger boy ate it when he saw the initials, E. A. T.! This stor

y tickled John Wesley’s funny bone and he giggled and giggled bu

t June

Star didn’t think it was any good. She said she wouldn’t marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday. The grandm

other

said she would have done well to marry Mr. Teagarden because

he was a gentleman and had bought CocaCola stock when it first cam

e

out and that he had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man.

They stopped at The Tower for barbecued sa

ndwiches. The Tower was a part stucco and

part wood filling station and dance hall se

t in

a clearing outside of Timothy. A fat man named Red Sammy Butts ran it and there were signs stuck here and there on the building

and

for miles up and down the highway saying, TRY RED SAMM

Y’S FAMOUS BARBECUE. NONE LIKE FAMOUS RED SAMMY’S!

RED SAM! THE FAT BOY WITH THE HAPPY L

AUGH. A VETERAN! RED

SAMMY’S YOUR MAN!

Red Sammy was lying on the bare ground outside The Tower with his head under a truck while a gray monkey about a foot high,

chained to a small chinaberry tree, chatte

red nearby. The monkey sprang back into the tree and got on the highest limb as soon

as he

saw the children jump out of

the car and run toward him.

Inside, The Tower was a long dark room with a counter at one e

nd and tables at the other and da

ncing space in the middle. They

all sat

down at a board table next to the nickelodeon and Red Sam’s wife

, a tall burnt-brown woman with

hair and eyes lighter than her

skin,

came and took their order. The children’s mo

ther put a dime in the machine and played

“The Tennessee Waltz,” and the grandmothe

r

said that tune always made her want to dance. She asked Bailey if he would like to dance but he only glared at her. He didn’t h

ave a

naturally sunny disposition like she did and trips made him nervous. The grandmother’s brown eyes were very bright. She swayed

her

head from side to side and pret

ended she was dancing in her chair. June Star sa

id play something she co

uld tap to so the childr

en’s

mother put in another dime and played a fast number and June Star stepped out onto the dance floor and did her tap routine.

“Ain’t she cute?” Red Sam’s wife said, leaning over the counter. “Would you like to come be my little girl?”

“No I certainly wouldn’t,” June Star said

. “I wouldn’t live in a broken-down place li

ke this for a million bucks!” and she ran

back to the

table.

“Ain’t she cute?” the woman repeat

ed, stretching her mouth politely.

“Arn’t you ashamed?” hissed the grandmother.

Red Sam came in and told his wife to quit lounging on the counter and hurry up with these people’s order. His khaki trousers re

ached

just to his hip bones and his stomach hung over them like a sack

of meal swaying under his shirt. He came over and sat down at

a table

nearby and let out a combination sigh and yo

del. “You can’t win,” he said. “You can’t

win,” and he wiped his sweating red face

off

with a gray handkerchief. “These days you don’t know who to trust,” he said. “Ain’t that the truth?”

“People are certainly not nice like they

used to be,” said the grandmother.

“Two fellers come in here last week,” Red Sammy said, “driving

a Chrysler. It was a old beat-u

p car but it was a good one and t

hese

boys looked all right to me. Said they worked at the mill and y

ou know let I them fellers charge the gas they bought? Now why d

id I

do that?”

“Because you’re a good man!” th

e grandmother said at once.

“Yes’m, I suppose so,” Red Sam said as if he were struck with this answer.

His wife brought the orders, carrying the fi

ve plates all at once without

a tray, two in each hand and one balanced on her arm.

“It isn’t a

soul in this green world of God’s that you can trust,” she said. “And I don’t count nobody out of that, not nobody,” she repeat

ed,

looking at Red Sammy.

“Did you read about that cr

iminal, The Misfit, that’s es

caped?” asked the grandmother.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he didn’t

attact this place right here,” said the

woman. “If he hears about it being here, I

wouldn’t be

none surprised to see him. If he hears it’s two cent in the cash register, I wouldn’t be a tall surprised if he…”

“That’ll do,” Red Sam said. “Go bring these people their Co’-Colas,” and the woman went off to get the rest of the order.

“A good man is hard to find,” Red Sammy said. “Everything is

getting terrible. I remember the day you could go off and leave yo

ur

screen door unlatched. Not no more.”

He and the grandmother discussed better times. The old lady said that in her opinion Europe was entirely to blame for the way t

hings

were now. She said the way Europe acted you would think we were made of money and Red Sam said it was no use talking about it,

she was exactly right. The children ran outs

ide into the white sunlight and looked at

the monkey in the lacy

chinaberry tree. H

e was

busy catching fleas on himself and biting each one caref

ully between his teeth as if it were a delicacy.

They drove off again into the hot afternoon. The grandmother took cat naps and woke up every few minutes with her own snoring.

Outside of Toombsboro she woke up and recalled an old plantation that she had visited in this neighborhood once when she was a

young lady. She said the house had six white columns across the front

and that there was an avenue

of oaks leading up to it and

two

little wooden trellis arbors on either side in front where you sa

t down with your suitor after

a stroll in the garden. She reca

lled exactly

which road to turn off to get to it. She knew that Bailey would not be willing to lose any time looking at an old house, but th

e more she

talked about it, the more she wanted to see it once again and fi

nd out if the little twin arbors were still standing. “There wa

s a secret

panel in this house,” she said craftily, not telling the truth but wishing that she were, “and the story went that all the fami

ly silver was

hidden in it when Sherman came through but it was never found …”

“Hey!” John Wesley said. “Let’s go see it! We’ll find it! We’ll

poke all the woodwork and find

it! Who lives there? Where do yo

u turn

off at? Hey Pop, can’t we turn off there?”

“We never have seen a house with a secret panel!” June Star shri

eked. “Let’s go to the house with

the secret panel! Hey Pop, ca

n’t we

go see the house with

the secret panel!”

“It’s not far from here, I know,” the grandmother said. “It wouldn’t take over twenty minutes.”

Bailey was looking straight ahead. His jaw wa

s as rigid as a horseshoe. “No,” he said.

The children began to yell and scream that

they wanted to see the house

with the secret panel. John We

sley kicked the back of t

he

front seat and June Star hung over her moth

er’s shoulder and whined desp

erately into her ear that they never had any fun even o

n their

vacation, that they could never do what TH

EY wanted to do. The baby began to scream

and John Wesley kicked the back of the seat

so hard that his father could

feel the blows in his kidney.

“All right!” he shouted and drew

the car to a stop at the side of the road. “Will

you all shut up? Will you all just shut up fo

r one

second? If you don’t shut up, we won’t go anywhere.”

“It would be very educational for them,” the grandmother murmured.

“All right,” Bailey said, “but get this: this is the only time we’r

e going to stop for anything like this. This is the one and

only time.”

“The dirt road that you have to turn down is about a mile

back,” the grandmother directed.

“I marked it when we passed.”

“A dirt road,” Bailey groaned.

After they had turned ar

ound and were headed toward the

dirt road, the grandmother recalle

d other points about the house, the

beautiful glass over the front doorway and the candle-lamp in the hall. John Wesley said that the secret panel was probably in

the

fireplace.

“You can’t go inside this house,” Bailey said. “You don’t know who lives there.”

“While you all talk to the people in front, I’ll run around behind and get in a window,” John Wesley suggested.

“We’ll all stay in the car,” his mother said.

They turned onto the dirt road

and the car raced roughly along

in a swirl of pink dust. The gr

andmother recalled the times when

there

were no paved roads and thirty miles was a day’s journey. The di

rt road was hilly and there were sudden washes in it and sharp

curves

on dangerous embankments. All at once they would be on a hill, looking down over the blue tops of trees for miles around, then

the

next minute, they would be in a red depression with the dust-coated trees looking down on them.

“This place had better turn up in a minute,” Bailey said, “or I’m going to turn around.”

The road looked as if no one

had traveled on it in months.

“It’s not much farther,” the grandmother said

and just as she said it, a horrible thought came to her. The thought was so embar

rassing

that she turned red in th

e face and her eyes dilated and her feet jumped up,

upsetting her vali

se in the corner. The instant th

e valise

moved, the newspaper top she had over the basket under it rose

with a snarl and Pitty Sing, the cat, sprang onto Bailey’s shoul

der.

The children were thrown to the floor and their mother, clutching the baby, was thrown out the door onto the ground; the old la

dy was

thrown into the front seat. The

car turned over once and landed right-side-up in a gulch off the side of the road. Bailey remai

ned in the

driver’s seat with the cat-gray-striped with a broad white

face and an orange nose-clinging

to his neck like a caterpillar.

As soon as the children saw they could move their arms and legs, they scrambled out of the car, shouting, “We’ve had an

ACCIDENT!” The grandmother was curled up under the dashboard, hoping she was injured so that Bailey’s wrath would not come

down on her all at once. The hor

rible thought she had had before the accident was

that the house she had remembered so vividly

was

not in Georgia but in Tennessee.

Bailey removed the cat from his neck with both hands and flung it

out the window against the side

of a pine tree. Then he got o

ut of

the car and started looking for the children’s mother. She was s

itting against the side of the red gutted ditch, holding the sc

reaming

baby, but she only had a cut down her face and

a broken shoulder. “We’ve had an ACCIDENT

!” the children screamed in a frenzy of

delight.

“But nobody’s killed,” June Star said with disappointment as the grandmother limped out of the car, her hat still pinned to her

head but

the broken front brim standing up at a jaunty angle and the violet spray hanging off the side. They all sat down in the ditch,

except the

children, to recover from the

shock. They were all shaking.

“Maybe a car will come along,” said the children’s mother hoarsely.

“I believe I have injured an organ,” said the grandmother, pressing her side, but no one answered her. Bailey’s teeth were clat

tering. He

had on a yellow sport shirt with

bright blue parrots designed in it and his face

was as yellow as the sh

irt. The grandmother de

cided that

she would not mention that the house was in Tennessee.

The road was about ten feet abov

e and they could see only the tops of the trees

on the other side of it. Behind the ditch they

were

sitting in there were more woods, tall and dark and deep. In a

few minutes they saw a car some distance away on top of a hill,

coming

slowly as if the occupants were watching them. The grandmother stood up and waved both arms dramatically to attract their atten

tion.

The car continued to come on slowly, disappeared around a bend

and appeared again, moving even slower, on top of the hill they

had

gone over. It was a big black battered hearse-

like automobile. There were three men in it.

It came to a stop just over them and for

some minutes, the driver look

ed down with a steady expressi

onless gaze to where they w

ere

sitting, and didn’t speak. Then he turned his head and muttered

something to the other two and they got out. One was a fat boy

in black

trousers and a red sweat shirt with a silver stallion embossed on the front of it. He moved around on the right side of them an

d stood

staring, his mouth partly open in a kind of loose grin. The other had on khaki pants and a blue striped coat and a gray hat pul

led down

very low, hiding most of his face. He came

around slowly on the le

ft side. Neither spoke.

The driver got out of the car and stood by the side of it, looking down at them. He was an older man than the other two. His ha

ir was

just beginning to gray and he wore silv

er-rimmed spectacles that gave him a schola

rly look. He had a long creased face and didn

‘t have

on any shirt or undershirt. He had on blue jeans that were too tight for him and was holding a black hat and a gun. The two boy

s also

had guns.

“We’ve had an ACCIDENT!” the children screamed.

The grandmother had the peculiar feeling that

the bespectacled man was someone she knew.

His face was as familiar to her as if

she

had known him all her life but she could not recall who he was. He moved away from the car and began to come down the

embankment, placing his feet carefully so that he wouldn’t slip.

He had on tan and white shoes and no socks, and his ankles wer

e red

and thin. “Good afternoon,” he said. “I see you all had you a little spill.”

“We turned over twice!

” said the grandmother.

“Oncet,” he corrected. “We seen it happen.

Try their car and see will it run, Hiram,” he said quietly to the boy with the gray

hat.

“What you got that gun for?” John Wesley asked. “Whatcha gonna do with that gun?”

“Lady,” the man said to the children’s mother, “would you mind cal

ling them children to sit down by you? Children make me nervo

us.

I want all you all to sit down right together there where you’re at.”

“What are you telling US what to do for?” June Star asked.

Behind them the line of woods gaped like a dark open mouth. “Come here,” said their mother.

“Look here now,” Bailey began suddenly, “we’re in a predicament! We’re in…”

The grandmother shrieked. She scrambled to her feet and stood st

aring. “You’re The Misfit!” she sa

id. “I recogni

zed you at once

!”

“Yes’m,” the man said, smiling slightly as if he were pleased in spite of himself to be known, “but it would have been better f

or all of

you, lady, if you hadn’t of reckernized me.”

Bailey turned his head sharply and said so

mething to his mother that shocked even th

e children. The old lady began to cry and T

he

Misfit reddened.

“Lady,” he said, “don’t you get upset. Sometimes a man says things he don’t mean. I don’t reckon he meant to talk to you thataw

ay.”

“You wouldn’t shoot a lady, would you?” the grandmother said and re

moved a clean handkerchief from her cuff and began to slap a

t

her eyes with it.

The Misfit pointed the toe of his shoe into the ground and made

a little hole and then covered it up again. “I would hate to ha

ve to,” he

said.

“Listen,” the grandmother almost

screamed, “I know you’re a good man. You don’t look a bit like you have common blood. I know y

ou

must come from nice people!”

“Yes, ma’m,” he said, “finest people in the world.” When he smiled

he showed a row of strong white teeth. “God never made a fin

er

woman than my mother and my daddy’s heart was pure gold,” he said. The boy with the red sweat shirt had come around behind them

and was standing with his gun at his hip. The Misfit squatted down on the ground. “Watch them children, Bobby Lee,” he said. “Y

ou

know they make me nervous.” He looked at the six of them huddled

together in front of him and he seemed to be embarrassed as if

he

couldn’t think of anything to say. “Ain’t a cloud in the sky,” he remarked, looking up at it. “Don’t see no sun but don’t see n

o cloud

neither.”

“Yes, it’s a beautiful day,” said the grandm

other. “Listen,” she said, “you shouldn’t call yourself The Misfit because I know y

ou’re a

good man at heart. I can just look at you and tell.”

“Hush!” Bailey yelled. “Hush! Everybody shut up and let me handle

this!” He was squatting in the position of a runner about to

sprint

forward but he didn’t move.

“I pre-chate that, lady,” The Misfit said and drew

a little circle in the ground with the butt of his gun.

“It’ll take a half a hour to fix this here car,”

Hiram called, looking over the raised hood of it.

“Well, first you and Bobby Lee get him and that little boy to step over yonder with you,” The Misfit said, pointing to Bailey a

nd John

Wesley. “The boys want to ast you something,” he said to Bailey. “Would you mind stepping back in them woods there with them?”

“Listen,” Bailey began, “we’re in a terribl

e predicament! Nobody r

ealizes what this is,” and his voice cracked. His eyes were a

s blue

and intense as the parrots in his shirt and he remained perfectly still.

The grandmother reached up to adjust her ha

t brim as if she were going to the woods

with him but it came off in her hand. She s

tood

staring at it and after a second she let it fall on the ground. Hiram pulled Bailey up by the arm as if he were assisting an ol

d man. John

Wesley caught hold of his father’s hand and

Bobby Lee followed. They went

off toward the woods and ju

st as they reached the dar

k

edge, Bailey turned and supporting himself against a gray naked pine

trunk, he shouted, “I’ll be back in a minute, Mamma, wait

on

me!”

“Come back this instant!” his

mother shrilled but they all disappeared into the woods.

“Bailey Boy!” the grandmother called in a tragic voice but she found she was looking at The Misfit squatting on the ground in f

ront of

her. “I just know you’re a good man,” she said desperately. “You’re not a bit common!”

“Nome, I ain’t a good man,” The Misfit said

after a second as if he had considered

her statement carefully, “but I ain’t the wo

rst in the

world neither. My daddy said I was a different breed of dog from my brothers and sisters. ‘You know,’ Daddy said, ‘it’s some th

at can

live their whole life out without asking about it and it’s others

has to know why it is, and this boy is one of the latters. He

‘s going to be

into everything!”‘ He put on his black hat and looked up suddenly

and then away deep into the woods

as if he were embarrassed a

gain.

“I’m sorry I don’t have on a shirt before you ladies,” he said, hunching his shoulders slightly. “We buried our clothes that we

had on

when we escaped and we’re just making do

until we can get better. We borrowed these from some folks we met,” he explained.

“That’s perfectly all right,” the grandmother said. “M

aybe Bailey has an extra shirt in his suitcase.”

“I’ll look and see terrectly,” The Misfit said.

“Where are they taking him?” the children’s mother screamed.

“Daddy was a card himself,” The Misfit said. “You couldn’t put anything over on him. He never got in trouble with the Authoriti

es

though. Just had the knack of handling them.”

“You could be honest too if you’d only try,” said the grandmother. “Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a

comfortable life and not have to think about somebody chasing you all the time.”

The Misfit kept scratching in the ground with the butt of his gu

n as if he were thinking about it. “Yes’m, somebody is always a

fter

you,” he murmured.

The grandmother noticed how thin

his shoulder blades were just behind his hat b

ecause she was standing up looking down on him.

“Do you ever pray?” she asked.

He shook his head. All she saw was the black hat wigg

le between his shoulder blades. “Nome,” he said.

There was a pistol shot from the woods, followed closely by anothe

r. Then silence. The old lady’s

head jerked ar

ound. She could

hear

the wind move through the tree tops like a long satis

fied insuck of breath.

“Bailey Boy!” she called.

“I was a gospel singer for a while,” The Misf

it said. “I been most everything. Been in

the arm service, both land and sea, at h

ome and

abroad, been twict married, been