If you follow my column, you know that my past tends to be my favorite topic because it makes me laugh. From my mom chasing lobsters in the kitchen to my dad allowing me to ride his hook-and-ladder at the firehouse, those are all good stories. This time, I will focus on my mom again because everything she did brought a smile to my face.
My earliest memory of my mother goes back to when I was just starting kindergarten and she took me to school. I held Mom's hand real tight because I really didn't want to go into the classroom by myself. I wanted her to sit with me all day long. Well, that didn't happen. The teacher said Mom was too old to retake kindergarten. I did the next best thing — I made her wait outside the classroom, always peering in so that I knew she was there. After several days, Mom got smart and had another mother who looked like her look in the window just to make me think she was still there. Meanwhile, Mom went shopping. I was so gullible.
When I began Little League, she would take me to my games. One time, the entire league went to watch a New York Mets game at Shea Stadium, and we were told to come suited up. Everyone knew what that meant — in full uniform. When my mom heard "suited up," she had her own idea of what that meant:
There I was at Shea Stadium in a three-piece suit alongside my teammates in their baseball uniforms. I didn't even have my glove. She thought it would clash with my blue suit. It was embarrassing then, but it seems so funny now.
As my mom grew older, her hearing began to fail, but we always found the humor in that, too. When you asked her if she had the Tums, she would respond "2 o'clock."
Several weeks ago, I lost my mom, who was 88. It is comforting to know that I now have 88 years of stories to keep this column going, and I will be smiling all the while as I write them.
