Always Eat The Burnt Toast

Yesterday on the radio the host encourage listeners to call and share what their mothers taught them. I started thinking what would I say with a 5 minute platform. My mom taught me everything since she raised us alone. The one thing that sticks with me daily is "put your children first".

In the 70's my mother who never finished high school but decided to make a financial sacrifice and pay for private schools. In kindergarten we lived in the building of a woman who sent her children to a Lutheran school so my mom sent me there. Midway through first grade we moved with my mom's pretend sister, so we went to a public school with her children. It was the longest year of my life, bullies, disruptive students and a sub par curriculum. When I arrived I was so advanced, I was labeled the smartest kid in the class. Midway through the second grade we moved to a woman's building that sent her children to a Catholic school so we were sent there. I arrived there one of the dumbest kids in class. I was so far behind in reading that I was enrolled in a special program. I attended the sessions until 4th grade and remember being teased for having "special reading". I later got revenge by being named salutatorian giving me the honor of delivering the welcome address at graduation. We would remain at that school until 8th grade, even though we moved a couple of times.

 My mom was very young and most of her friends sent their children to the local public school. Her friends drove new cars and my mom had a beat up station wagon. Her pretend sister had the biggest, latest television with a remote control, our set came from Salvation Army and we used pliers to change the channel. I don't know if her friends ever told her she was stupid for paying for our education when CPS was offering the same thing for free but we heard it from the neighborhood children that taunted us in our plaid skirts. Even then I knew my brown uniform was a badge of honor, I didn't understand exactly how we were better off but I knew we had an advantage.

Regina always had a strong work ethic no matter what was happening in her life she got a job, worked hard and advanced. She moved us to better apartments every time her pay increased allowed us to "move on up". As a busy working mom she was always running late trying to prepare breakfast, get us dressed and get to work on time. She burned the breakfast at least once a week. When the toast popped out too dark she would replace it with a new piece of bread and put the burnt toast aside. My mom grew up hungry, she couldn't throw food away so she quietly ate the burnt toast. We never went hungry and never lived in government housing. My mom is the epitome of the great American story, she lost her mom at 13, shuffled between relatives and foster homes, had a baby at 17 (me) and another 19 (same dad), married for a brief time finally producing a son but was devoted to making sure we did better than she did. We were Girl Scouts, traveled to Disney World and for years she sent us to tap and ballets lessons on Michigan Ave. We were never idle, seven days a week were off to either school, scouts, choir practice, dance rehearsal, skating rink or a movie. Looking back I should have taken the piano lessons when she offered instead of tap and ballet that was very painful, I am happy that video cameras were not invented yet.

I graduated from a private high school and next Sunday her first granddaughter will graduate from a private university, God is good. My mom and sister think I don't remember the lean years and everything she did for us, in fact they think I was switched at birth because of my political views. During the last presidential election season Mommy and I fought endlessly and she didn't understand how I could be so defiant, I know how, she put me in a uniform skirt with my skinny ankles, on the westside of Chicago. I had to explain almost daily why my mother so dumb to waste money on private school. Note, brown plaid was never in fashion in the ghetto, it was like wearing a bulls eye. 

Happy Mother's Day Mommy. I thank my mom for skipping the Cadillac and investing in us and I thank the nuns and priest of Our Lady of Lourdes for making us appreciate the privilege of a private education.

One Mother

Why is it that as adults your mother has the ability to cut to the core and make you feel like crap (I gotta find a better word)? No matter how successful, adjusted and complete you feel your mom can pull the rug out from under you in ten seconds or less. When I pick up my mom at the train station after her 55 minute commute from the big city I can clock how long it takes her to dig into her bag of insults. Just like the excrement flinging primate she hits me right in the kisser. Her best time is 6.5 seconds, if our high school wrestling team could pin opponents that fast we would be undefeated. The top 3 are, 1. "Why did you move here, it is to far and to dark?" 2. "Why were you late, you wouldn't treat ________(insert any other relative"s name) like this?". I have never been more than 5 minutes late and only because she refuses to read the train schedule prior to leaving home. She prefers the Russian Roulette method of blindly leaving home only to arrive at the station without a goal in mind. If she just missed a train and the next one is 2 hours later, fine. She has the uncanny ability of arriving exactly 2 minutes before the event she is coming to witness. But if you start the day my saying, "Mommy the followings times are great so that we won't miss the graduation because we are picking you up", she will reply, "I won't be rushed, I will get to the station when I get there, you know I have an illness". I digress, where was I? 3. "The train conductor singled me out and tried to have me thrown from the train because he took my ticket and forgot. He did it because I am black", so was the conductctor. Once she hangs up her coat she unloads the big guns, someone has either gained weight or lost (they were fat the last time she visited). It's late but insist we serve her whatever we had for dinner, "I normally don't eat like this so late, in fact I ate on the train, could you put the leftovers in the refrigerator?", "Does your husband always cook this kind of food, no wonder you guys are so big, hee-hee?" and finally, "Is that new?" (pointing to an item that was there the last time she visited) "It must be nice.".  I feel pressure to lie by saying we found it in the trash or got it hot from the flea market, it probably came from Sam's Club where she to can shop for good deals since we added her to our account but Mayor Daley won't allow Walmart and Sam's to open in her area because he is in the back pockets of the unions, but I digress. It boils down to as an adult your mother can cut you to the quick but when I am threatening my teens, I can't penetrate the wall of defiance. In 15 years when I exit that train in their towns it will be equal to the tornado scene from The Wizard of Oz.