I know I tell you all a lot of stories from my childhood. But I had a pretty good childhood, good friends and family and those stories entertain me, so why shouldn't I? Right? After all, it's my blog..... don't like it? Go read someone else's blog. Or better yet, write your own. Since it's Mother's Day I was trying to think of a real good story about my Mom. You know something really funny that would make you laugh until you wet you pants. The thing is, it's hard to think of a lot of funny stories where Mom was the star. She was always a player in the stories but she usually stood off to the side either shaking her head in disbelief or encouraging us as necessary.
When we were kids, Mom didn't work outside the home. We kept her plenty busy inside the home. We always had a freakishly clean house. Until just recently I don't think I fully comprehended how that happened. I mean, I only saw her clean on Saturday's and then it was an all out assault. What I didn't realize was that every day of the week, cleaning was taking place. Saturday was just the day that she got us involved and it was not pretty people. On Saturday morning she would tell you to clean your room. So, being the obedient daughter that I was, I made the bed and then asked if I could go out and play. Heheheheh.... I was so cute in my fresh faced innocence.... So, she would then come into my bedroom like a Nazi officer and begin pulling dolls and stuffed animals that were shoved in corners or in the closet floor out and throw them in the hall, she would tell me to take the sheets off the bed (that I had just made up) and throw them in the hall. She basically demolished the room and then strolled to my brother's room leaving me to put it all back together. In Robbie and Ronnie's room, the same scene played out. When she was done there was a hallway full of junk that needed to be cleaned before we put it back in our rooms neatly where it belonged.
I don't remember vacuuming or dusting so much during those cleaning Saturday mornings because that was already done. I guess I thought it just occurred magically or maybe the cleaning fairies came out and did it regularly. As I got older, I remember vacuuming and dusting... VIVIDLY! But when we lived on Nottingham that was all taking place behind the scenes while we were in school. Now from what I described above you might think Saturday morning cleaning was awful. But I have to say, it wasn't that bad. There were always 4 or 5 albums on the stereo turn table while it took place. And everybody was participating so it wasn't that bad. Dad was usually out in the garage while we all cleaned our bedrooms 'cause that was sort of his room to keep clean. He'd be putting things on his workbench away or working on something that had broken. That meant if there was something that you needed to get rid of, like an old broken toy, you couldn't just take it to the garage and dump it off. That was Dad's domain and you were not allowed to dump stuff out there on Saturday morning. You had to sneak it out there during the week when he wasn't aware of what was going on.
I said we kept Mom plenty busy inside the home, but I should explain further. You see, I remember sitting down at breakfast almost every morning when I was in elementary school. We were like the Cleaver's except that Mom wasn't wearing a shirtwaist dress, full makeup and pearls when we came into the kitchen for breakfast. Even if we only had Malt-O-Meal we still had to sit down at the table and eat it. Me and my brothers were fans of the Chocolate Malt-O-Meal. That, my friends, was some good eating. I was looking for a picture of a Chocolate Malt-O-Meal box from the 1970's to post, but the one that came up when I Googled it had microwave instructions on the box. We didn't have no stinking microwaves in 1972! Anyway, after breakfast, we all walked up the street to the bus stop and I suppose, Mom started cleaning. When we would get home the house would be spotless just like it was everyday, we'd have some freshly home baked cookies or a bowl of cereal for a snack and then we were told we had to play outside until suppertime because she had spent the entire day trying to get that house clean and we weren't going to tear it up.... Like we were little heathens or something. Oh, wait, we were!
So we would go outside and tear things up out there. On Nottingham all the kids met outside just about every afternoon 30 or so minutes after getting off the bus. We took just enough time to get our snacks and then we were ready to spend the rest of the afternoon playing. We usually met around our house since it was about midway down the street. The boys would play football, baseball or something like that. For a few years, I was the only girl in the neighborhood, so I'd play with them. When Mary K Sanders moved in while I was in the 3rd grade, I started playing Barbie's with her but we had to play in her house since her Mom worked and didn't care if we made a mess. So, we'd build huge Barbie mansions in Mary K's bedroom and have a great time. Sometimes I'd go play with Kara Compton. Kara and I were pretty good friends but she had a brother that I was kind of afraid of so I didn't go to her house too much if he was home. He probably turned out to be the greatest guy in the world, but for some reason, I was afraid of him.
Anyway, everybody knew that my Mom was the one Mom in the neighborhood that was home. So if any problems arose, she was the one that sort of took care of things. Mrs. Shoemaker and Mrs Worthan were stay at home Mom's too. But everybody gravitated to our house for some reason. What's really funny though is that everybody thought our Mom was mean but it didn't keep them all away from our house. Before we moved away from Nottingham there were more than 20 school aged kids that all hung around together everyday and our house was home base to a lot of them.
While we were all outside playing, giving ourselves concussions and breaking limbs, Mom was in the house planning and cooking dinner. Around 5:45 Dad would get home and that was usually my cue to head home. Once I got there, I usually sat the table and made the tea. Those were my jobs. Then I had to go call Robbie and Ronnie in. That generally consisted of me walking out to the driveway and screaming at the top of my lungs ROOOOOOBBBBBIEEEEEE..... ROOOOOONNNNNIEEEEEE..... COME IN AND EEEEAAAAAATTTT..... It was a very attractive thing I did. I don't know why I didn't end up married to any of those boys from the old neighborhood.....
When Robbie and Ronnie came in, we all sat down at the dining room table and ate supper. While we ate, we talked about everything that each of us had done that day. You said please and thank you when you wanted something. After supper, Robbie and I carried our dishes to the sink while Ronnie continued to sit at the table trying to figure out ways to get rid of his creamstyle corn without eating it. It seemed like he would sit there for hours. But it probably wasn't that long at all. But it was torture. I remember on a couple of occasions when Mom told Dad that he wasn't punishing Ronnie as much as he was punishing her by making him sit there until it was gone. Ronnie would take a bite and make a gagging noise.... Really???!?!!? Who gags on corn? He would whine that it smelled like coffee. (Don't ask, I don't understand it either....) Most of the time he would eventually eat it. Sometimes I think he just spread it out on his plate enough that Mom decided she could get by with saying he had eaten enough. So I think she would hurry up, pick up the plate and scrape it off before Dad came in and looked. If you scooped it all back up together it was probably the exact amount of corn that was put on his plate to begin with.
During the summer, we all sat down at the table for lunch too. Usually we just had sandwiches. But sometimes there were fishsticks or corny dogs. What I'm saying is that Mom didn't call anything in. She was a full time Mom 365 days a year. She was our room mom in school. She was a Brownie leader, I think she helped in Cub Scouts when we lived in Alvin. She made most of my clothes which is why I never got to wear bluejeans until 4th grade. She gave the boys haircuts and gave me perms whether I liked it or not. She did it all. So, Happy Mother's Day Mom! Now I'm heading to Nacogdoches.
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