(This is a reprise of my 2005 column).
Looking back over these many years on Mother’s Day, I realize there were a number of things my mother never taught me. I suppose she had her reasons for not completing my list of life skills, but some of them are costing me now. Take for instance playing Liar’s Dice at the fish camp and the fact that she taught me – never tell a lie.
It must have been my mother’s Christian upbringing because she always insisted we tell the truth. Now telling the truth can get you in trouble, like when Diana asks if I like the new frock she just bought ‘on sale’. For me to say that I think it exposes just a little too much leg or is a little too décolleté will have dire results for me so I have learned to carefully address my replies in words that are, well, almost deceitful. Nevertheless, playing Liar’s Dice with the boys has cost me many a shiny quarter because they always seem to know that when I say I have three aces and a pair of eights that I am prevaricating. I sometimes wonder if they would buy three jacks and a pair of deuces but it goes against my nature to diminish the value of a poker hand.
Mother never taught me how to leave the kitchen without cleaning up the dishes. It may have been that with a passel of younger siblings I was expected to help with the after-meal clean up, but somehow my sister learned the kitchen-escape lesson. Even when we are invited out for dinner I often find myself in someone else’s kitchen sink, washing and wiping the dishes, pots and pans. Not that I mind, because the kitchen clean-up staff get to nibble on that leftover chicken wing or dispose of that last little piece of lemon pie. And I always took a devilish pleasure in putting the dishes away in the wrong place when at my mother-in-law’s home for dinner while my wife and her mother enjoyed a cup of tea.
A few years ago I struggled with the urge to follow the fashion trend of wearing jeans with ragged cuffs and holes in the knees, but my upbringing just wouldn’t allow me to do it. Contrary to any current fashion trend, Mother never taught us to abuse our clothes or any other belongings. It may have been the result of not having enough money to indulge in fashion trends or the fact that our clothes came from last years’ Sear’s sale catalogue, but I knew how to mend clothes, sew on buttons and to darn socks. When I did leave home, I back-slipped a little once, buying those iron-on jean patches that were good for two or three washings. As for wearing pants that were too large with the crotch hanging to the knees, those were problems for my younger brothers as they grew into my clothes.
There are times when I wish my mother had taught me to wave one finger, but she never did. On the whole, being polite and respectful serves one well, however when you are driving down the highway, minding your own business, plodding along at the speed limit and some idiot roars by, blasting his horn, the one-finger salute is de rigueur today. I do remember seeing my mother secretly practicing the two-finger peace sign one day, but since it was used mostly by hippies with their long hair and torn jeans, she never did officially pass that on to me. I guess the five finger wave still works best.
And speaking of long hair, Mother never did teach me the pleasure of having flowing locks that blow in the wind or could be tied into a handsome pony tail. Somehow she seemed to think that this was reserved for my sister. Mother was right about short hair being easier to wash and manage, but brush-cuts went out of style a long time ago. I know she never took any pleasure in clipping our hair when we were young boys squirming under the tugs and pulls of a pair of Sears’s Special Home Hair Salon shears. But I guess her lesson stuck because even as grown men we boys all wear our hair short. In fact, I notice my brothers wear their hair really short and thin on top now.
On a related topic, we boys (and Dad) never came into the house without taking our caps off. I am uncertain where this tradition came from since none of us ever met royalty and felt obliged to doff our head gear in respect. Mother has been gone for over a decade now but she would really be disappointed to see the hats worn in restaurants, theatres and meetings. The times and customs change but the old ways sometimes stick with me. Darned if I didn’t find myself removing my golf cap when I went into a fancy country club in Florida this past winter. Some of the older members had removed their caps but I could see it was not something most of the younger members choose to do.
I suppose I can understand why Mother never taught us about leaving food on our plate after a meal. It was apparently good form in the upper circles of society to leave food on your plate after a meal. I guess this tradition came from the old days when you could show off your wealth by leaving food on your plate - food that people in the lower income brackets needed just to survive. I see many people doing this again now, as they leave pizza ribs, broccoli stems and half-eaten breads on their plates, or worse still, plates of buffet food wasted by people whose eyes are bigger than their stomachs. As I recall when we kids were young there was never a question about leaving food uneaten – usually because there was not a whole lot to leave, but Mother reminded us of starving children in the world. The trouble is, I still eat everything in sight and my waistline is showing the effects. I surely wish she had taught me to leave the food in the pot instead of loading up my plate and leaving nothing.
However, the one thing she never taught me that I really, really miss is how to make butter tarts and tea biscuits. I have her recipes but I am sure she left out some secret ingredient. No matter what I try, I never can get either the tarts or the biscuits just right. I sometimes wonder if it was that old wood stove that she struggled with that made the difference but my science tells me heat is heat. Aurian’s Pastries on Algonquin used to come close on the butter tarts, and even Jean-Marc in Sturgeon Falls comes a near second, but we always say, “Not as good as Mother’s”. The Pillsbury dough boy was not in the same class at all as her tea biscuits despite what the TV ads say.
I suspect that the secret ingredient she used was Mother’s Love – something we men just don’t have. Just sayin’.
Happy Mother’s Day to Moms everywhere.
