The F*****g morning mouse
She would stick her cold hand under the sheets and make little tickely motions while saying, "it's uppy, uppy time" in the mouse voice. No wonder I hate mornings!
The parking lot
My sister visited this past weekend and she doesn't remember this - the advantage of being the youngest. You know how it is when you are circling the parking lot at the mall and there is a great space on the other aisle that you probably won't get to in time? Well, just make your kid jump out of the car and stand in it until you can get there. Mom figured most people wouldn't run over a kid so she gambled with our lives for her better parking space.
Bangs
School picture time.
Bangs to long.
Time to trim.
Oops, crooked, we'll just snip a bit more.
Oops again, and again, and again...
Every school picture has me and my sister with 1/2" bangs sticking straight out from our head. As if school pictures aren't bad enough.
Cussing
These were bad words:
Damn, Hell, Shut up, Butt, Bitchin', Shit
These words, if uttered, earned a smack on the face. Mom was a great believer in corporal punishment.
My Gramma visited when I was 3ish. She said shit alot. At some point, after she went back to San Diego, I was helping Mom hang out the laundry on the clothes line. I dropped the bag of clothes pins and said shit. My sweet mama sat me down on the back stoop and gently explained that shit was a very bad word, Gramma shouldn't say it either, maybe the next time I am mad, I could say, "nuts" instead. Little Pammy says okay mommy. A few minutes later the bag is dropped again, I say, "nut shit" and got my face smacked. I guess she should have done that the first time.
More bad words
Additional bad words in our house were ethnic or religious slurs or jokes. We were not allowed to tell Polock jokes, or say any of the words we've all heard but I can't bring myself to write down here.
I remember telling a joke I heard at school about an Italian who had a flat tire or something but the punch line was, "wop, wop, wop, wop". Yep, you guessed it, a smack on the face.
I loved this about my Mom when I understood what it was all about. In her mind the "N" word would be worse than the "F" word. How cool to be raised by someone like that in the 50s and 60s.
The banana curl
At some point in my life banana curled pony tails became popular. My long hair had to be put in a pony tail wet, then I had to stand in our family room while Mom tied a long strip of cloth to a room divider newel post, then wrapped my pony tail around the post, then untied the strip of cloth and wrapped it around my hair. On top of that I had pin curl bangs. This would usually be done on Saturday night so I was all tricked out for church.
As you can imagine I was lovely; the front looked like a brillo pad and the back looked like a bed spring of hair.
Driving
Mom didn't. She was raised in Boston. Moved to Phoenix in her early 20s. Didn't have a car until she and my dad got married. After I was born she tried to learn to drive and almost killed me, got scared and never learned again. Until I was 12. Then Dad gave her a car and an instructor. She was never comfortable behind the wheel and as soon as I was 16 I was the driver. By the time she was in her 50s she was convinced she would die behind the wheel so my sister and I drove her everywhere, even to her job and back.
She died of breast cancer in 1988. I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the horrible traffic on Phoenix roads.
Sayings
Let's see, some of these are standard momisms and some were original to my mom.
If you don't stop crying, I'll give you something to cry about.
Close the door, were you born in a barn? (shouldn't she know)
Eat that food, there are children starving in China.
If you had a brain you'd be dangerous (an original I think)
You'd lose your head if it wasn't attached (another original)
Wit
My mom had a great wit. She was the funniest non performing mom I have ever heard. She would spin off those one liners and have us laughing on the floor. I loved my friends meeting her because she wowed them. My junior year we were building the homecoming float at my house. It rained all week, she had us move everything into the living room - what a mess. But our napkin stuffed chicken wire stayed dry.
Turn a phrase
I was on the school newspaper and would give her my articles to peruse. She would always tell me how good it was and then offer miner changes that greatly improved the final product. I wish I had half her talent with words.
Music and movies
Mom listened to some of the best music; of course it was not cool but I still liked it. We had Glenn Miller, Connie Francis, Andy Williams, Ed Ames, Nat King Cole, Tommy Dorsey, Connie Stevens, just to name a few. Saturday mornings she would load up the turn table with these albums and we would commence cleaning the house. If it all got done in time, we headed out to the mall.
I love old movies. Mom introduced me to some of the classic late night movies and I still enjoy them.
The Indian School
There was an Indian School in uptown Phoenix that was a boarding school for kids from the Navajo Reservation. It had a big fence and some squat, utilitarian buildings. One of Mom's threats when I was misbehaving was that she would take me and leave me at the Indian School. Now, understand we had nothing against Indians, they were all over Phoenix and I grew up seeing them often. However, the school looked very foreboding.
