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Here we go again.
'Hey...wait a shortstoppin' minute there, Robert...
Didn't I see this article LAST year?'
That's right, you did. This is an updated version. Every Mother's Day at Newsvine I post up a tribute to my mother, who is the greatest thing since Swiss cheese and four-leaf clovers. I change up the title, add some new stuff, and there you go. Now I know most of you are going to tell me after you read this how your mom is cooler than mine, and you are free to do so.
Just don't get your hopes up that I will concede the point. (laughs)
In many ways, my mother reminds me of Rosalind Russell as 'Auntie Mame' ('Life is a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death. So live!')
When I was growing up she had interesting roommates who all seemed so sophisticated, and men who were willing to do almost anything for her. One memorable boyfriend took us up in his single-engine plane and then proceeded to fly UPSIDE DOWN. When we finally got back on the ground, she never dated him again. The faces came and went, and I got the idea after a while she was seeking someone to be a father about as much as she sought an actual husband. They had to be willing to do double-duty, as it were. I don't believe any of them got past the pre-engagement stage.
Then there were the San Francisco coffeehouses, where people smoked a lot, read beat poetry and played bongos badly. I was always properly introduced to everybody. To me, they were all fascinating characters.
Mother did have a secretarial job with Betty Crocker, but I think she found it boring. One day she booked passage for us on a freighter bound for Manila. She said my grandfather had an import-export business there, and she was going to work for him.
The 'SS Franklin Pierce' took its good time wandering across the Pacific. Along the way we made stops at Kwajalein Atoll, Midway, and some islands the Japanese occupied during World War 2. One advantage to taking passage on a freighter is that you get to eat with the officers. I always minded my manners. Mother was strict on that one.
Someone gave me a wind-up toy car and I nearly followed it over the railing and into the ocean when it dropped off the deck. One of the crew snatched me up by my belt at the last moment. I think they were watching me, and probably having fun doing it.
Back in the 60's, the Philippines were much different than now. All theatres had to do in Manila was run the film 'Back to Bataan' dubbed into Tagalog, and they could pack 'em in. They loved Americans, and thought all of them were John Wayne. Manila was a melee of the very rich, the very poor, and merchants. There was no middle class, but everyone seemed to get what they needed. We moved into a nice house near downtown and my mother hired a maid who doubled as the cook. It wasn't long before mother was not only working, but being invited to really nice parties. She always took me along, and at one of them, they had solid-gold faucets in the bathrooms and so much food I couldn't believe people could actually eat it all.
One morning, mother hinted we might be short of money, which turned out later to be nothing. But being the 'man' of the house, I took it upon myself to rectify the situation. I had the cook run up a few dozen doughnuts and put them in a basket. Then I took a 'Jeepney', which are sort of highly-decorated cabs, down to the waterfront where the Navy ships docked in Manila. I stood near the gangplanks and sold donuts for a dollar apiece. The Navy guys saw the little American boy on the dock and started dropping dollar bills into the doughnut basket without actually taking a doughnut. One of them was smart enough to walk me home.
Mother was pretty upset about my disappearance, but when I produced the basket of money and a handsome sailor, she gave me a kiss and sent me to bed.
About a year later, mother decided we were going to Guam. Soon after she arrived, we met my soon-to-be-father. Larry was a civilian worker for the Anderson Air Force Base there and pumped jet fuel. He took us to the drive-in every weekend. I think they waited for me to fall asleep. After they married, I acquired a REAL family, since Larry had a boy and a girl from a previous marriage.
My new brother and I wandered the hills and jungles on Guam for the next few years. When we gathered all our friends and played 'Army', we used real tanks and artillery pieces left over from the war as props. You could find spent brass everywhere. Some people collected this stuff for a while, including unexploded shells. But when a shell went off in someone's house in Apra Heights and blew the roof away, the Army Ordinance boys started cleaning up the island. It took them years.
My new father bought us a plastic-molded rowboat and my new brother and I plied the lagoons as pirates until a reef finally tore out the bottom of the boat.
After a few years, an approaching typhoon gave my mother an excuse to leave the island. We moved to Oregon, and then later to Washington State, where my father took a job with Boeing. My brother, sisters, and I spent the next few years growing up on a small farm where we raised (and ate) practically everything possible to grow.
Eventually, the farm fell victim to progress as the Puyallup Valley sprouted both a new freeway and a ton of warehouses. But we had a lot of good years there, and we sure didn't have to walk a mile through the snow to get to school - it was right next door.
Some years later, mom and dad finally retired to Arizona, where they live today quite happily.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!!
