Monday, February 13, 2006

My Mom

Today was Mom's birthday. I feel bad because I've been looking for my box of photos to put one up of her, but I can't find it. It will have to wait.

Mom was born in 1905, and died in 1977. She always used to say that the world was going to hell in a handbasket, and she was glad she wouldn't be around to see the worst of it. I'm still trying to decide if she would hate what life has become, or be gratified to have been proven correct!

Mom had the blood of pioneers flowing through her veins. She could turn her hand to anything, from knitting lace to cleaning a chimney. She could stretch a stew further than anyone I ever met, and put on a fine dress with a fur stole and attend the Bishop of Coventry's daughter's wedding.

She sang. All the time. Hymns, show tunes, popular music from WW I to the 1950's. Irish songs. Stephen Foster. She sang.

I miss her.

On the towing-the-trailer-across-the-continent odyssey, we stopped for a month in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, and both Mom and Dad went to work at the resort. One night, the trailer was heaving and shuddering enough to wake us all up. Mom took a peek underneath, and found a bear trying to abscond with our meat locker. This was in September, when bears get real religious about eating, on account of they're about to hibernate. Dad would just as soon have given the critter the meat, and gone back to bed, but not Mom. She let out a yell, and heaved a rubber boot at the bear, which prudently retreated behind a nearby tree. Then, she stood in the trailer doorway, with the broom in one hand and the boot's mate in the other, and told Dad, "Now, you get the meat locker inside!" He did, and life went on, but I will always carry that picture of my mom facing down the bear, armed with a broom and a rubber boot!

2 comments:

  1. I love reading your stories, and seeing your cat pics.
    Reading your latest has made me recall my grandmother's wood burning cook stove. She could cook up some of the best food on it! I remember when I was little, she'd let me have the left over biscuit dough, and make 'creations' with it to cook after she was done. I can remember kneading that dough until it was tough and grey (yuk), and stuffing it full of 'Boston Baked Beans' candy. My poor uncle ate it (ha), so my feelings wouldn't be hurt.
    I'm sure my mamaw was glad to not have that old stove anymore, but I sure did love it.

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  2. I learned how to bake in one of those ovens! There is definitely a trick to it!

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