Aunt Flo's 84 years of wisdom

I joined in, thrilled at the news that Stephanie Edwards will return this January to emcee the 120th anniversary of the Pasadena parade.

Score one for the old broads -- and you can take that however you want.

As a woman on the downside of 50, I took it personally in 2005 when Edwards -- then 61 -- was banished to the bleachers by her KTLA bosses and replaced as 67-year-old Bob Eubanks' partner by a younger, perkier TV news anchor.

It's hard to age gracefully in this town. The kids move out, the boyfriend moves on, the job gets wobbly . . . and suddenly you're whitening your smile and eyeing plastic surgery ads.

Or in my case, I'm studying older women who've survived the transition with style, wisdom and grace.

That's how I wound up this week at Aunt Flo's house for lunch -- fresh fruit from crystal goblets, chicken and salad on matching china -- and looking back through eight decades of life.

We're not related. Florence Candee is the great-aunt of a friend of my youngest daughter. But we've crossed paths at 10 years of school plays, parties and graduations, and I live for her cellphone messages:

"Sandy, dear," she says, in that bubala voice. "It's Aunt Flo. I loved your column on the County Fair. Did you know I won a blue ribbon there?" Her winning tapestry hangs on her kitchen wall, faded ribbon attached, 16 years later.

She grew up in South Los Angeles and graduated from Fremont High in 1942, one of five Jewish kids in a mostly Italian class. At 19, she married Joe Candee, followed him to four Army bases around the country and had three children in short order. They returned to Los Angeles so broke, "my parents had to pay our rent," she said.

But Joe launched an airplane parts salvage business that did well enough for them to build a home in Cheviot Hills, put all three kids through college and retire to their Encino condominium.

She's a throwback to an era that we sometimes poke fun at, when ladies busied themselves with PTA meetings, bridge clubs and art lessons. But "I loved being a mother and a housewife," she said. And I secretly wish I'd had that chance.