Another Legacy Birthday
It was pretty easy to decide what to write about this morning. Today is our mom’s 79th birthday! As I mentioned before, she and dad also celebrated 60 years of marriage a few months ago. Together, they built a family, established a good life for us, and I blame both of them for the work ethic I inherited from them.
She was a “stay at home” mom for our early years. Looking back, that meant she sewed most of our clothes (matching outfits for everyone), made awesome decorated cakes for birthdays, helped grow, harvest, and process all the fruits and veggies we ate, tried to keep my middle sister from “adopting” the baby chicks and sneaking them out from under the heat lamps, putting up with the horses, stray dogs and cats, random other animals and of course, feral children. She was also in charge of providing medical treatment for our misadventure with said horses, dogs, and other animals. Just as a public service announcement, it’s not a good idea to rope a tomcat or try to make a gopher a pet. If you do attempt either, keep leather welding gloves handy. You will thank me!
As we grew older, she worked outside the home and still found time to chaperone weeklong escapades as the FFA mom willing to drive a car full of teenagers to random livestock expositions like the Cow Palace Expo to live and sleep in modified livestock stalls for 7-10 days. Yes, 3 double bunk bed frames just fit in a horse stall for 6 people to sleep snug. It was crazy and fun. Maybe it’s one of those “you had to be there” moments, but we kept going back year after year.
One of the things I remember about those trips is thinking my mom was freaking brave! I grew up driving at a very young age, but there wasn’t a lot of traffic on unpaved roads in the country to worry about. For a kid not knowing how to use a crosswalk, going to a big city like San Fransico was a little intimidating. Driving with all those cars on the interstate, nuts! But Mom didn’t seem to care, she drove there and during the down times would venture out into the city to search for libraries and genealogy sources to gather information for her book on our family ancestry. This was way before the technology our vehicles have now, there was no GPS voice telling her to turn left 60 feet ahead or before cell phones were the norm. There was no way to call for help if you got lost or stranded, you just figured it out. It seemed crazy to me then and it still does now! But she did what she needed to do and made things happen!
So today, I say Happy Birthday Momma! I’m sorry you had to sleep in bunkbeds (you did always get a lower), got lost with us in Chinatown, and had to hang out in show barns during your vacations. But thanks for being adventurous and letting us learn to be brave too.