Mother Mary's 80th Birthday: January, 2008

I doubt my mother, growing up on a farm in the same house in which she was born, could have envisioned her children traveling all over the world. Her father eeked out a living for his wife and four children as a farmer, both postmaster and school driver in their small home town, and a skilled trader of cows, cars, horses and guns. Traveling more than 100 miles from home was a big adventure.

When we would visit my grandparents' home in the summer, I was always amazed by the fact that they lived in a 100+ year-old house where their water came from a well in the ground through a hand pump on the wooden porch. We would drink it from a communal metal dipper that hung on a post. It was the best water ever.

Taking a bath involved heating well water on an old wood stove and pouring it into a gray wash tub on the porch. In the old days, a family would start by bathing the biggest kid and bathe the rest of the kids by age in descending order. By the time the baby bathed, the water would be so murky that it was hard to see what was in it, hence the old saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water." My mom says that's not how it was in their family, but I read that somewhere long ago and knew exactly what the writer meant.

There was no indoor plumbing, but my cousins and I always had a great time playing in the cool shade under the house, which was built on four foot pilings to avoid being flooded out in a heavy rain. We would play baseball with the Treadwell kids who lived across the country road. The field was uneven ground with big holes formed over the years from hearding cattle in the mud druing rainy weather. It was much more suitable for catching June bugs, tying them to strings and letting them fly around us.

My mom grew up before the advent of television, of course, and the idea of a gas stove that didn't require chopping wood and a difficult time firing it up at 4 in the morning was an unrealistic dream. When I bought her a microwave oven in the seventies, I remember her saying she would never use it, which of course proved to be way off base. She still has no use for computers, iPods, and lots of other modern "necessities," but she does have a cell phone charged and ready to use for emergencies, even if she almost never makes a call with it. And yet, she never considered herself impoverished. She felt very wealthy growing up. There was always food on the table, clothes to wear to school, and most of all, strong love of family and friends.

My mother moved to California with my Dad just after I was born. As my sister and I grew up, we always felt that same strong love in our house. All of our friends were always welcome, and they all loved my mom too. It's little wonder that we're always happy to have the opportunity to be with her and bring her with us on trips.