Mother’s Day is coming up.
I finally got something off my chest last week that has been bothering me for well, about five decades.
Where I grew up, every house had a milk chute.
The Twin Pines milkman would come by in the morning, open a small door situated next to the side door, and put the gallon of milk and butter or whatever in there.
Honestly, I do not remember ever having a milkman, but that was what the door was for.
When I was about seven, I took a crayon and scrawled “Pall Mall” on the Munson’s milk chute. The Munsons lived two doors down. I have no idea why I did it. I didn’t smoke, my parents didn’t smoke, so it certainly wasn’t an unsolicited advertisement.
But I did it anyway.
Finally, at 57, I admitted my childhood indiscretion to my mom.
“Why did you do that?” she exclaimed.
I told her the truth; that I did not know. She did not ground me or give me a time out. I’m a little old for that.
I have a feeling that Mrs. Munson knew it was me. About once a week for years, she would ask who wrote that on the milk chute.
I don’t recall her asking anyone else. She just asked me. I kept denying it.
Until a week ago. Coming clean five decades later was sort of a Mother’s Day present.
My mom is in her 80s and is doing great. She was a great mom under some pretty trying conditions. She had three sons and all of us arrived within hardly more than a three-year span.
We did the things most boys did. We played sports. We crashed a few cars. We had girlfriends, some that got parental approval and some that did not. We tended to linger longer with those that did not, I suppose.
Tom, Bill and Jim. We all eventually got married. We all eventually had kids. We’ve all worked pretty much all of our lives. We’ve had births in the family and deaths in the family and that is the way the circle of life meanders.
My mom worked hard for most of her life. She was a grade school teacher and later a principal. The hours she put in were monumental. She’s been retired for awhile now.
Physically, she is slowing down a little bit, but who isn’t? Mentally, she is still sharp as ever.
Happy Mother’s Day, mom. I think I’ll light up a Pall Mall in your honor (just kidding).