Let's see, I've known my mom for 46 years, why not the 63 years that I've been alive? That's because my mom passed away in 1995, and I was 46 years old. Actually when I think about it and do the math, I was not yet 46. I would be 46 in April and she passed in Feb. of 1995.
My first real memory of my mom was when we moved to California from Pennsylvania. We flew on a plane with these big 4 prop engines. This was in 1953 and we didn't fly in a jet. I don't remember if they even had jets for commercial airlines. Mom was so nice to me and my brother John. My dad was already in California so it was my mom's job to get us to California. While on the plane we got to visit the cockpit, which was something they did back then, for a lot of the kids that flew for the first time. Nowadays they don't allow that, with hi-jacking and other problems. Mom was great, she kept us quiet with some games and also got us to take naps.
My next real memory was not a pleasant one. I stuck her car keys in a wall socket. This was way before all the baby-proofing and socket protectors they have now. She got so mad at me, she sent me to my bedroom and I was told to stay there until my dad got home. He'd be home at 5:30 and it was about 3:00 when I made my big mistake. She was actually more scared than mad. She was afraid that I could have killed myself so she wanted me to learn my lesson. When dad got home he gave me a spanking. This was back when parents spanked their children, well some did and mine followed that rule. So I got my spanking and to tell you I don't think I was ruined by it and I think I'm pretty normal. And I learned my lesson. I never stuck the keys in the socket again.
I think most of my memories are good ones but I do have some that are questionable. Those usually are funny now, and people like to hear those stories over the others. I remember the year it was Christmas and Mom had most all of the shopping done and she even had the presents wrapped. Well I came up with the idea that I could open the presents very carefully and then re-seal them and no one would be any wiser. So I told my brother my brilliant plan. He said that we shouldn't do this but I said lets just do one and that mom won't find out. He agreed and I went into my mom and dad's bedroom where she had our presents stacked in a corner. I grabbed a small box that obviously held a watch, but since I was 11 years old and John was 13, it could have been anything. There were two of them, matching in size and weight. So I opened up the two boxes, one for me and one for John. There were beautiful gold watches inside with metal stretch bands. They were self-winding and even had the date on the face. They were very nice and really modern. After John and I looked at the watches for a while and tried them on we put them back in the box and re-wrapped them. Mom and Dad worked and wouldn't get home until after 5:00 PM. It was about 1:00 PM, so we had plenty of time to cover up our deed. We got them wrapped back up and kind of hidden at the bottom of the pile of presents. They were safe for about a week. Then one night Mom was in her bedroom, checking the pile of presents and she spotted those two tell-tale boxes.
Mom was sitting on the end of her bed when she called me and John into the bedroom. She was sitting there holding the two watches in her hand, their bad wrapping job incriminating us with each passing second. She asked us who opened the presents. At first we said we didn't know. And then we wanted to know why she thought we did anything with the presents. She looked at us and held up these rather badly wrapped boxes, matching in size and weight. The paper was wrinkled and creased, rather than nice and smooth like when she wrapped them. She asked us about that. I said, "The paper got wrinkled from the other presents sitting on top of them. " Mom replied, "That's not what happened, I can tell that these were opened and re-wrapped." and she showed us where the paper and tape was messed up. So again she asked, "Who opened these?" Again we said we didn't know. She kept after us, asking us if we were lying and what happened. I then came up with a brilliant scenario. "Mom, maybe someone came in the window and opened the presents and then re-sealed them." She looked at me with total shock. I know now that she must have been just dying trying to hold back the laughter. She then said, "David, do you really think that someone would break into our house and open your presents?" I thought about it and I didn't know what to stay and how to avoid any more trouble. Mom then said, "Don't lie to me." I looked toward her but not in her eyes and said, "Mom someone must have come in here and opened them and closed them back up." She finally hit me with the killer statement, "David, do you think some stranger would come in here and open the presents and see these new pretty watches and not take them?" She had me, I was caught. I knew I was in big trouble now, what a lame excuse. I knew she was going to be madder about my lying rather than what I did. I won't go into what happened after that. Let's just say that my silly explanation at 11 years old, wasn't nearly as brilliant as I thought it was.
One of the things that I remember most about my mom is seeing her, year after year, sitting in her rocker in the living room, watching TV and crocheting. She made so many afghans for family and friends. We had so many friends that over the years have gotten married and Mom would make them an afghan for a wedding present. She did this for two reasons. The main reason was for the love of making something for them. The other reason was because it was not as expensive as buying something from a store. As she made these afghans I asked her if she would teach me how to crochet. She did and I loved it. It gave me something that my mom and I had in common. As I got older and I got better at crocheting I began to take over making the afghans because Mom had Rheumatoid Arthritis in her wrists and hands and she could no longer crochet. The thing I loved about me making the afghans now was that I still had mom to help me if I ran into trouble.
Mom's always been the type of person that has to keep busy and crocheting was perfect for her. But now she had to find something else she could do with the limited use of her hands. She discovered she could make Christmas ornaments out of plastic canvas and embroidery floss. She would make all kinds of Christmas ornaments: Christmas tree, Snowman, Angels, Bells, all kinds of things. She also taught herself how to put names or initials on the angels and on a little toy soldier. She sold a lot of those over the years and she gave a lot of them to friends. For friends, she would make angels for girls and the toy soldier for boys and she would put either names or initials on them.
Mom has been gone for 17 years now. But it still makes me cry if I happen to get in touch with someone that I haven't talked to in a while, and they tell me that they still put their angel or soldier on their Christmas tree every year and it reminds them of my mom and how much they loved her. And that reminds me how much I LOVED her.
That's just a little bit about my mom, bless her heart.
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