CLARKSBURG - The early afternoon entertainment for the Italian Heritage Festival - an accordionist - drew more vacant seats than occupied ones on Saturday.
That's all right with Sheila Liljenquist. It's easier to keep an eye on her grandmother Genevieve Musci and great-aunt Arlena Cody Bashnett sitting in the front row.
The white-haired sisters of Italian descent don't mind that the booming speakers are 10 feet in front of them. They need to be close to hear. But Sheila minds. So, she stands farther away and catches up with friends.
Genevieve, 101, wears a slight smile as she listens from her wheelchair, never losing hold of her black Kate Spade purse. Arlena, 96, is next to her, listening with her eyes half opened and closed - sometimes the only sign that she hasn't fallen asleep is the tapping of her foot to the music.
A tall man whom Arlena met an hour ago approaches.
"Would you like to dance?"
With the same energy as a teenage girl being asked to Homecoming, Arlena springs to her feet. Without hesitation, she takes hold of his left hand with her right and places the other on his back. The pair begins circling in a two-step, polka-style dance around West Main Street in Clarksburg.
In a high-pitched shrill, she looks up at him and boasts, "I'm 96!"
They smile.
Many stop to watch. Someone videos the action and later posts it to Facebook.
It received over 1,400 "likes" and 20,000 views in less than 24 hours.
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Genevieve, or Gene, and Arlena are commonly called "Gramma" and "Ginga" by their grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and, now, the millions of people who have discovered videos of the sisters exchanging combative cuss words while they argue over a washcloth or have a dispute over directions in a car.
Thanks to two of Gene's grandchildren, Frank Fumich and Sheila, the pair have become somewhat of an online sensation. In July, Frank started a public figure Facebook page, "Gramma and Ginga - G&G," which he and Sheila virtually manage, adding videos of the two bickering often. The page already has more than 160,000 likes. But if you ask the sisters to explain what Facebook is, they'll look at you with blank stares.
The ladies, who have never owned a computer, have their own YouTube channel under the same name, "Gramma and Ginga."
Their most famous video shows Gene, "Gramma," sitting in the center of her kitchen in a wooden rocking chair. She's examining an old photograph. Arelena, "Ginga," sits on a long, green couch against a sidewall and attempts to speak to her hard-of-hearing sister.
"And I wish you'd quit looking at all of those old pictures. Wouldn't they make you sad?"
Gramma doesn't acknowledge her.
"Would you like to be that young and pretty?"
Still nothing.
Ginga shouts, "You hear me?!"
Gramma turns, "What?"
Without hesitation, she screams at her younger sister, "I don't have my hearing aid on. What in the hell do you want?"
That video, which is under 2 minutes long, has received nearly 16 million views on Facebook. It was posted on Aug. 10.
The pair's social media success hasn't gone unnoticed.
The family shared via Facebook that they have been contacted by producers to discuss featuring the pair on various national television shows including, "The Ellen Show" in California and NBC's "Today" show in New York City.
They've been invited to television news stations near and far. WDTV Channel 5 out of Clarksburg practically adopted the women as the representatives of the Italian Heritage Festival, following them around town and chatting with them about their deceased husbands - Ginga's had four - in Gramma's kitchen.
Fox 32 News out of Chicago featured a short story about two. "The Ellen Show" posted an article with a headline claiming "Once you listen to these old ladies bicker, you'll never want to stop."
Walking around downtown Clarksburg during the three-day Italian Heritage Festival, the two couldn't make it very far without getting stopped. Countless strangers greeted them like old friends - "Hi girls!"
Others approached the unsuspecting pair as they watched Italian singer Moreno Fruzzetti perform to ask for their photograph. The two sisters, who both struggle with hearing even with their hearing aids are turned on, always smiled at the strangers. But it's hard to tell if the two could understand when a middle-aged woman shared, "You lift my spirits every day I watch." Or when a 20-something told them, "My best friend and I say we're going to be like these two when we get older."
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Gene's sitting in her wooden rocking chair leaning against a long green cushion. She's not rocking, just sitting in the same chair in the same kitchen that millions of people have now seen from their smart phones, laptops and tablets.
Although there's a loud discussion taking place in front of her, it's clear she can't hear what people are saying. There's no strain on her face. She's not trying to make out what Sheila and her friend Diana Somazze are discussing about her unsought fame.
She's just sitting there, peacefully looking out at the women in her kitchen, and accepting that - like with her Internet stardom - she's not always going to know what's going on.
Her eyes become alert when she sees that someone has turned their body toward her to ask a question.
"Do you know why you're famous?"
With innocent, unknowing eyes like a child, she answers, "No." And she asks, "Do you know?"
"We've told you about the computer and Facebook. We've tried to explain to you why all of these people know who you are," Sheila says.
"Uh huh?"
The reporter for the Gazette-Mail tries with, "Do you know what the Internet is?"
She shakes her head "no" and says "I don't know what any of this new stuff is, hunny."
Sheila compares the videos' success to that of television star.
"Like when you watch somebody on TV and you see them every week, you kind of feel like you know them."
Gene stops her during multiple times in the conversation to ask about Sheila's mother, Marie.
Did Sheila remember to tell a distant friend that her mother died from a sudden blood clot in November?
And where had they placed "one of your mother's photos?"
Before waiting for an answer, Gene gets up to go looking through her home for photos of her oldest daughter.
"I'll find them."
Sheila follows after her.
Sheila and her younger brother Frank have been making trips to Clarksburg from their northern Virginia homes a lot more since their mother died. Gene had come to rely on Marie for a lot of things, and the siblings know that. Marie was her only living daughter. Her younger one, who also was named Sheila, died many years ago at the age of 59 from a brain tumor and her husband, also named Frank, died nearly 28 years ago.
Between juggling careers and kids, Sheila and Frank are working to have a greater presence in Gene and Arlena's lives. And that's how the videos started.
When it was Sheila's turn to visit, she would video the pair as they bickered, which they often do, and send it to her brother, Frank. Frank started doing the same and eventually decided to share it with a larger audience, creating the Facebook page.
They've started videoing the two as Ginga, who has driven for 66 years, picks up Gramma, who has never driven, to head to Catholic mass or to the bank. They've videoed the pair as they discuss the weather in McDonald's or when they go grocery shopping.
They'll assure you that Gramma and Ginga's behavior isn't an act. Gramma's been calling Ginga a "nibshit" for years. And Ginga has happily told her big sis "Gene, why don't you kiss my ass" countless times.
Sheila thinks that's why so many people like it.
"There are probably thousands of families where old ninnies argue. A lot of people see their grandparents in these two."
When Arlene enters Gene's home Saturday evening, she shouts "All aboard!" She's wearing a white blouse and is ready to head back to the festival to see the evening entertainment.
Arlene sits down on that famous green couch waiting for Gene and Sheila to gather their things.
When Gene's ready, she asks Arlene, "Are you going out in your car?"
"Yea."
"Well get the hell out," Gene says.
Her sudden, sharp words stun everyone. Sheila starts to laugh. Arlena grins and as she's walking out the door lets out another, "All aboard!"
"I'd like to kick her in the ass," Gene mumbles as she follows them out.
Reach Anna Patrick at anna.patrick@wvgazette.com or 304-348-4881.