Once upon a time a young girl named Susan lived in a small town.  It was the same town and the same street where Susan’s mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother had all spent their girlhoods.  As Susan grew from birth to young adulthood, her mother and grandmother gave her much advice about how to live and grow and do the right thing. 

In particular Susan’s grandmother, whom Susan called Nannah, tried to guide her toward socially acceptable behavior.  Nannah felt her guidance was particularly important since Susan seemed, at least to Nannah, a bit too interested in doing her own thing.  Susan was not one to be guided by conventional ways of thinking and acting. 

For example, while encouraged to play with dolls, Susan preferred making mud pies and sand castles of her own special design.  When she was signed up for piano lessons, Susan never managed to arrive at her teacher’s house on time — the neighborhood baseball games proved too much of a distraction.  As other girls her age went through predictable phases and fascinations, Susan continued to march to her own drummer. 

Finally, when Susan showed up for her seventeenth birthday party wearing cut-off jeans and a white T-shirt (rather than the pretty cotton dress Nannah had bought for the occasion) it proved too much for Nannah.  That afternoon, Nannah reached the end of her patience.