A day for memories

            Today is my mom’s birthday. No need to say which one, except that I’ll say I never had trouble figuring out Mom’s age because she as born in 1900. She’s been gone thirty-one years, and I still want to turn to her to ask, “How do you cook such and such?” or “Who are those people in that picture?” or “Do you remember….?” She still seems but a phone call away.

If you ask, I will tell you the first thing I remember about my mother is her laughter. She could find laughter in so many situations, sometimes to the consternation of my more stern father. I see her in the back seat of our station wagon, between my two oldest children who were strapped into 1970s versions of car seats and screaming their heads off. The louder they screamed, the more she laughed. My father stared straight ahead, as though ignoring the commotion would make it go away. She told stories about family members and herself that made us laugh, and she laughed until she cried. There was the uncle who locked himself out of his apartment pulling a fuse to trick newlyweds—only he was stark naked, and my aunt, in the bathtub, couldn’t hear his soft knocking.

Or the time a friend came by to ask her to witness important legal papers. Discovering the woman had not had breakfast, Mom started some toast, wrote Alice P. Mac and then checked the toast. When she came back, her mind on breakfast, she wrote Bread instead of the last part of our name, Bain. Alice P. MacBread. A childhood friend of mine still laughs at that story.

My next big memory is of cooking. She was a wonderful cook, and she encouraged me, let me make a mess of the kitchen so I’d learn, and I did. Once, quite young, I made a chocolate cake that tasted awful. Mom asked how much baking soda I used, and I said, “Nine teaspoons.” She looked, and there was a misprint in the recipe. She laughed about it and made me feel better. By the time I was twelve, I was her sous chef, and when she hosted big dinner parties I had the kitchen cleaned before the guests went home. I often made the appetizers and was known for a blue cheese dip that never came out the same way twice. To this day, cooking is my avocation.

You might call Mom one of the last pre-Friedan housewives. She catered to Dad, cooked him three meals a day, including the meat and potatoes he wanted every night. (But in cities like Boston she dragged him to seafood restaurants where he staunchly ordered roast beef.) Every night before dinner, she showered and put on a fresh dress. She ironed sheets, in the days before permanent press. She entertained lavishly for him.  She led him to believe he was king of the roost, though she often triumphed in subtle ways.

Mom was no slouch. With a degree from the University of Chicago, she was proud of her years as secretary to Chancellor Robert Maynard Hutchins who accomplishments included founding the Great Books program, which she followed all her life. She never worked because Dad would not have liked that, but she flexed her work muscles by managing the gift shop at the hospital where Dad was administrator. And together she and Dad read all the works of historians Will and Ariel Durant.

She knew hardship, lived through the Depression, lost her first husband to a WWI wound in the early thirties, leaving her with a toddler to raise. She and my dad lost a baby girl who lived six months, and she lived ten years as a widow after Dad died. Some days she gave in to weeping, mainly on the anniversary of my sister’s death, or a migraine, but most days found her with a bounce and a cheery smile. She’s always been a role model for me, telling me not to take myself too seriously, to think of others, to find the good in life.

I miss you every day, Mom.

Mom, the Great Depression, and the Trumpeter

A hopeful sign of spring

My spider plant got left out in the cold

but one brave shoot is poking its head up

Spring and good times are coming

Like many Americans, my reaction to the dramatic drop in the stock market ranged from disappointment (there’s that trip I wanted to take my daughter on and my friends who wanted to replace the windows in their house) to mild and brief panic. No, I am not old enough to remember the Great Depression, but my mom lived through it, and I have heard the stories. More directly, I saw the lifelong impact it had on her.

Born in 1900, Mom was in her thirties in the years of the Depression, a mother at thirty-two, a widow at thirty-four. The years of scraping by and making do showed in her housekeeping. She hated to throw out leftovers and would squirrel them away in small containers in the back of her fridge. In her later years, we would periodically clean out those containers and find many with mold growing. When I was a young wife and mother and would say of leftovers, “Just pitch it,” she mocked me and finally made me see the error of my ways. Her frugal habit is surely the origin of my soup of the week—I collect and freeze leftovers and put them all together when there’s enough to make a pot of soup with the addition of broth or canned tomatoes (this week it definitely tastes of lamb).

Mom re-used paper towels. She’d clean a spot on a counter or something and then stash the slightly-used paper towel in a special place she had for them. Spill on the floor? Out came one of those slightly used pieces of towel. She saved bits of string. And foil? The smallest pieces were saved and re-used. Of course, she washed out plastic bags when they became available. Socks beyond darning (who has a darning egg these days?) became dust rags, great for running your hands over stairs.

Mr. Trump would be in the cross-hairs of Mom’s ire for many reasons, among them the fact that he has not taken responsibility for this historic drop in the market the way he was quick to take credit for the meteoric rise in the Dow Jones. The rumor that he once said a president in office when the market dropped a thousand points in a day should be shot into the air from a cannon is that—a rumor, or as he likes to say, “fake news.” But he does consistently ignore that the rise in the market began well back in the Obama years—he probably dismisses the  calendar and history. I’m sure he’ll never mention any possible connection between his disastrous tax bill and the market fail.

I saw a cartoon on Facebook recently that should give us all pause. It showed a homeless person, asleep on a park bench, covered by newspapers for just a bit of warmth. The caption suggested that instead of measuring our economy by how well the wealthiest among us are doing, we should measure by how the poorest are doing—or not doing.

Food for thought.

I am my mother’s daughter

My brother and sister-in-law came to see me today to check on how I am doing—and he to reassure himself, for he brought his stethoscope, listened to my lungs and heart, declared lungs fine, heart strong but irregular. Lots of people live with irregular heartbeat, as the cardiologist told me, and I was not concerned, at least not more than I already am.

At one point Cindy commented that I was bright and happy for just getting out of the hospital, and I said, “It’s a choice we each have—we can be happy or we can choose to be unhappy.” At which point, my brother said, “Thank you, Mother.” And it’s true—that’s an approach to life that our other gave us in daily doses.

She was a wonderful woman who brought light, laughter and love to her world and often reached beyond it to those she deemed in need. I am forever grateful for all that she gave me, including a love of cooking. And reading.

Mom was passionate in her political dislikes.The mere appearance of Richard Nixon would transform my gentle, refined mother into a screaming harridan. I can hear her still, “Look at him! Look at his eyes! You can see how dishonest he is.” I shudder to think how she would react to the current pretender (I heard him referred to that way recently and thought it the perfect nomenclature).

But Mom was a nurturer. Stories abound of her taking care of others. She would be distressed today at the dissolution of DACA and wringing her hands over the fate of 800,000 Dreamers, worrying about their future, trying to figure out how she could help. Were she in Florida, she would be helping nail boards over windows, all the while making plans for how to feed storm refugees. The same if she were in Houston. And if she were still among us, she would wonder how she could help those in peril from the wildfires in our West and Northwest.

Mom would agree that in the face of such overwhelming tragedy widespread across our hemisphere, not to mention the floods around the world, North Korea’s ongoing threat, instability in Asian governments, the world sometimes looks a grim place. Petty disagreements, arguments between friends, colleagues, and lovers—all pale in the face of what faces the world now. Even the bathroom bill looks pretty silly in the face of these disasters.

Thanks, Mom, for arming me to live in these times.

Tribute to my mom

With people posting pictures of their moms on Facebook, I wish I had good pictures of my mom. I do have a few but they are not digitalized. She died too soon for that. Besides, she always said she took such a bad picture that her father told her the only place he’d hang it was in the barn. I inherited that from her.

The other things I inherited are her love of cooking, food, family and laughter. I’m sure I missed that indefinable quality that made many describe her as the most dignified and ladylike woman they knew. With a degree from the University of Chicago and a background as secretary to Robert Maynard Hutchins, chancellor of the university and founder of the Great Books program, she probably could have had any kind of career. But she was a ‘50s housewife who kept home and family together, supported my father in all his efforts, and satisfied her own ambition with volunteer work.

Mom taught me to cook. Once one of her friends came in when another girl and I had made a mess of the kitchen. “How,” the friend asked, “can you let them do this?” Mom’s reply? “If I don’t, they’ll never learn to cook.” Another time I carefully followed a recipe for devil’s food cake. When they tasted it, Mom and Dad exchanged long looks. “Judy, how much baking soda did you put in this?” “Nine teaspoons,” I told her proudly. She checked—and it was a typo in the recipe. I had followed it to the letter but wasn’t quite smart enough to realize that nine teaspoons would be wrong. Some of my best memories, though, are of cooking with her. To my father’s frequent dismay, she loved to experiment. He was a meat-and-potatoes man and steadfastly ordered roast beef when she dragged him to seafood restaurants on the East Coast.

When my brother and I were young, Mom would tell us stories of the medical school days of our fathers (they were roommates at one point; John’s father died of a WWI wound and Mom married my dad). She’d tell, for instance, the time my uncle stepped out into the hall of their apartment building to pull a fuse as a joke on newlyweds and the door slammed shut behind him. Problem with that was that he was stark naked, and my aunt was in the bathtub. When she came out she couldn’t figure out how she lost him in a one-room apartment. Tears would roll down her cheeks when Mom recounted this.

Or the time a friend came to ask her to witness some important business papers. Mom found out the friend hadn’t had breakfast and set about making toast. She signed her name, Alice P. Mac—and checked the toast. When she came back instead of completing her name with Bain, she wrote Bread. To this day one of my friends laughs about Alice P. MacBread.

She was a terrific grandmother, adored and amused by her grandchildren. Once she sat between my two oldest, then toddlers, in the back of a car. They were tired and screaming, and the louder they screamed, the heartier her laugh. My dad drove as though he’d never met any of us.

I have so many rich memories of Mom that I’m sure I left out a lot. When she died at 87, in 1987, I wanted to call her and demand she answer the questions she left unanswered, from “Who is in this picture?” to “How do I cook such-and-such.” I talked to her a lot. Today I swear she visits me. I wake with the sense of someone in the house—Jacob? Sophie? No, I think it’s Mom, watching over me.