Growing Up Weird

Like most children I suppose, I think my mother is insane. She isn't psychotic or dangerous -- just nuts. Unlike most children though, I've kept a record of her...um...antics, and have a small accompanying photo album. I credit my mother with a lot. She raised my brother and me alone for 11 years after my alcoholic dad left us behind. She put herself through school during her 30's, and managed somehow to make college (in my case, college and art school) possible for both of us. She is a strong woman and when the chips are down she is there offering assistance and support.

My earliest memory of "quality" time with my mother is a time when I was 3 years old. I had a new baby brother and my mother was making an effort to make sure I wasn't feeling left out with him getting all the attention. I walked into our kitchen and saw her stirring something in a mixing bowl. I asked her what she was making and she wouldn't tell me. I asked a couple times, flustering her, and she told me just to wait a minute then I could see.

I sat down at the kitchen table, thinking she, like my Gramma, was mixing up cookie dough or cake batter. Finally she was done mixing and flipped the bowl over, spilling its contents on the table before me. I looked at the misshapen ball of light blue dough with darker blue spots and then looked at my mother with uncertainty. "What is it?"

"It's for you. Do you like it?" (There was a long pause while my mind tried to decide what it was and what I was supposed to do with it.)

"Do you eat it?" I asked, my eyebrows raised in confusion.

"No, you play with it."

Wondering why she wanted me to play with my food, thinking for some reason she was setting me up for something I just stared at it.

She gave up in frustration and said, "Like THIS!" and began to mold and shape the dough. She had made homemade Play-Doh for me. My young mind was only wondering why it had "blueberries" in it. It was just spots where the dye hadn't mixed out. She went away thinking I was defective. I sat thinking she was crazy. I did end up playing with it, although tentatively at first.

My mother only seemed to go downhill after that. When I was older she called me and we got onto the subject of snowplowing. She asked me who she could call. (We lived in a small town.) I had no idea. I suggested she call the radio station and see if anybody there knew since they did ads for everyone in town, maybe they could help her. She said good idea. Then said she couldn't call them now. (It was daytime.) Confused, I asked, "Why not?"

"Because it's an AM station."

Even more confused, "So?"

"It's PM now. Nobody will be there." (I am not kidding. That is what she said.)

Then there's the dead bunny. My mother is an animal lover. My mother is crazy. One time she even drove around a pine cone. (heavy sigh) But she loves animals. She drives through the forest roads on the first day of hunting season honking her horn to scare the animals away so they won't get shot. I digress...the dead bunny....

She was driving to the mall in the next town. The roads between her home and the next town are country roads. As will happen on occassion she hit a bunny who was unfortunate enough to think the large speeding metal thing coming at it was no threat. Anyway, true to form, my mother got out of her car to check on the bunny. Not knowing whether it was dead or merely unconscious, she put it in her back seat in case it woke up and she had to take it to the veterinarian. She put it on the floor and it didn't move. She petted it and talked to it, it didn't move.

She climbed back into her car and continued to the mall. (This is where I stopped her in her story and asked, "You took a dead bunny shopping?" She shrugged, considered a moment and said, "Well...yeah.") Okay. So mom is at the mall. She got out of the car and checked on the bunny who was still not moving. She went inside and did whatever she had to do and came out and checked the bunny again. Bunny was not responsive. Mom got back in her car and drove to where she hit the bunny and pulled over. Did she put the bunny by the side of the road? No. She took the bunny out of her back seat, carried it off the side of the road, jumped over a ditch and laid the bunny gently beneath a bush "so it's family could find it and know it was dead."

Like I said we lived in a small town. I went to art school in Philadelphia. Talk about culture shock. My mother, at the thought of "the big city" became immediately spazmodic about driving there. When we walked down the street she was literally hanging on my arm and I had to tell her that if she was going to act like she was a frightened tourist we WERE going to get mugged. She managed to pull herself together. However, she remained so nervous about the city that she stopped noticing what was going on around her. She was driving and pulled into a gas station to get gas. The man who came out to wait on us was tall, heavy, and black. (She's a country bumpkin from a white area.) So, stereotypes set in and she panicked. She asked for gas and he filled up her car. He came back and she handed him her money, he gave her change (back in the day when you got change when you purchased gas) and said a gruff "Have a nice day." She, again, panicked out of her skull and scared about the city replied, "Thank you, Ma'am." (Oh she didn't! "Ma'am????") I burst out laughing from the passenger seat. Her eyes widened in fear when she realized what she had done...and the man looked at her like he was going to thump her, but cracked a smile and laughed. Only when she realized she wasn't going to die did she begin to laugh and loosened up a little.

When I was in high school a time came upon us where we happened to need to purchase a toilet plunger. So, my mother and I hopped into our car and she drove us to the feed store (we were bumpkins I tell ya). We located the aisle with the plungers. Could she just select one so we could go? No. She had to test them. She went down the aisle taking plungers off the shelf and sticking them to the floor to "make sure they suck". She found one she liked and decided to buy. Guess what happened. Go ahead. Yep! All the plungers were stuck to the floor and she couldn't get them to let go to return them to the shelf. We were alone in an aisle with seven plungers stuck to the floor in a row like tin soldiers. Again, I couldn't stop laughing. It only got funnier when she decided it wasn't funny and was a calamity. The more worried she became, the more hilarity I saw.

My mother was never one to buy new clothes for herself. She usually wore hand-me-downs from friends daughters (my mother is small) which means she usually never "dressed her age". But when I was in my 20's she decided to actually ON PURPOSE buy herself a new winter coat. She chose a knee-length hooded wool number that looked like a Native American blanket. She loved it. She raved about it. She was proud of it. She was happy.

Until one day we were driving across town and I spotted a woman wearing the same coat. I pointed her out to my mother. It was a bag lady. That ruined the love of her coat and from then on she wore it because she had to. She didn't cherish the thought that she was dressed like the area's homeless.

Another memory from childhood I have is of us at the gas station (apparently the best things happen at gas stations). Back in the day when someone came out to pump gas and would check your oil for you. The man told her she was a little low and could use more oil. She had no idea what kind was in there. He recommended one and she asked, "Will it clash with what we have in there?"

One summer she decided she wanted to be more like her parents and wanted to put in a garden. Her mother looked at the plot of land and said, "You're going to need a hoe." My mother, in all her wonder asked, "What's a hoe for?" My grandmother laughed as she got into her truck and pulled away.

I have a picture of her in that winter coat...and also wearing the bright red yarn wig I made for my son that year for Halloween. (He was Raggedy Andy.)

I have a picture of her climbing backwards out of my son's crib.

I have a picture of her when she stayed overnight and was trying to keep warm. She's wearing sweatpants, fuzzy socks, her nightgown and her coat.

I have pictures of her eating with food sticking out of her mouth.

I have pictures of her asleep and drooling on her pillow.

I have pictures of her holding my boys' hands and dancing in front of the television to "Barney".

My mother is nuts. But she's ours and my kids couldn't have a better nana.