“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to
love their mother!” ~ Theodore Hesburgh
My parents are a combination of the fictional character, “Pollyanna,” from the famous Disney movie, Pollyanna, and the cartoon character, “Grinch,” from Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch Who Stole Christmas! When I was growing up my mother, Shirley, had dark, almost black hair, not yet grayed from age. I thought she was beautiful like my sister, Vicki. Mom was a gifted, and talented seamstress. She could look at a dress in a magazine and recreate the design using various pattern pieces. My mother must have “sang and shouted for joy” when she knew she was coming to earth to receive a body, as she could literally sing and mesmerize audiences with her vocal performances. Everything about my mother is cultured and refined. She loves theater, art, and literature. Having been unable to go to college, my mother sought education through local college education classes and through books. As a young mother, her bishop told her that she was raising five, very special spirits and she should strive to obtain more knowledge.
My mother taught her children truths and values by writing, relating stories about her life and others she’d known. She used her storytelling skills to write road-shows and plays for local youth performances and later she wrote romantic novels. When my parents built the house I grew up in, mom helped design and decorate it. She was the mother everyone else wanted and I was the envied daughter who actually thought she was cool! She’d often tuck me in bed with her late at night after my father left for work, and we’d watch old black and white movies. My mother loved good movies, especially the ones with well written stories, noble characters, and a moral message. I loved all the honorable, virtuous, classical old movies of her generation. To this day I am transformed by a good story with principled heros and heroines.
My mother is a perpetual optimist. She is Pollyanna and the “glad game,” the author of positive thinking. She has always given me hope and continuously lifted me to greater heights with her never-ending belief in an eventual happily ever after ending!
Humorously, for everything my mother represented while I was growing up, my father, Milton, appeared to be the polar opposite! How they came to have five children with him working hard at night and into the late afternoons, and her staying up late into the wee hours of the morning working on projects, is a mystery, if not a miracle! In his youth, my father, Milt, was a shy, fair haired, blond with wavy hair. However, by the time I met him, the curls had thinned and all but vanished. I thought he was extraordinarily handsome. Best of all, his dry sense of humor kept his children laughing and my mother often apologizing, when his tall tales and seemingly harmless chauvinistic jokes embarrassed her.
High priority on my father’s list of talents was his lifetime love of fishing. Fishing, and his great love for the sport, soared foremost above all of my father’s other passions and interests. He and his father and two brothers more than likely fished every fishing hole from Utah to Wyoming. Our monetary purchases were measured by the dozens of donuts he’d need to make in his chosen bakery profession, but our life values were analogized in humorous quotes about fish. Dad had a fishing joke for every occasion. My father truly was an amazing fisherman and he kept us supplied with an impressive “catch of the day,” although we were mostly unappreciative having usually witnessed the final demise as he gutted, cleaned, and prepared the slimy vertebrate. It was not until I began reading my mother’s history later in life that I realized how often my father went fishing. His long, continuous days of hard work were peppered with his needed and much deserved, fishing stress releaser. However in the days before cell phone and easy phone access, I’m sure my mother spent many desperate, if not lonely hours, handling life’s crises, unable to reach my father.
To my hardworking father, his work was his play, and he was an excellent provider in the days where men were expected to “bring home the bacon” to their stay at home wives who would “fry it up in a pan.” So why did I think of him as the Grinch to my mother’s Pollyanna? Not only were my parents complete opposites in their cultural likes and dislikes, they had contrasting senses of humor! Dad loved to tease my mother and give her the exact opposite reaction than she was looking for. This generous, loving man, who denied us nothing, loved to be the pretend “ba humbug” in my mother’s Christmas, much to my delight and the laughter of my siblings! Now retired and plagued with dementia, my father’s former life has changed. However, his sense of humor is still there, evident by the way he rolls his eyes and by the funny comments mumbled beneath his breath.
When I was a child, I admired my parents and wanted to be just like them. As I grew to maturity, I wanted to be different, better somehow. I would certainly never give the tired old speeches I’d grown up with! Then one day I caught myself saying something to one of my adult children that my mother would have said, realizing at the same time that I’d turned into my mother. Suddenly, it wasn’t such a bad thing after all!
Dedicated to my 87 year old parents for their 68th Wedding Anniversary (September 17, 1941).
My mother taught her children truths and values by writing, relating stories about her life and others she’d known. She used her storytelling skills to write road-shows and plays for local youth performances and later she wrote romantic novels. When my parents built the house I grew up in, mom helped design and decorate it. She was the mother everyone else wanted and I was the envied daughter who actually thought she was cool! She’d often tuck me in bed with her late at night after my father left for work, and we’d watch old black and white movies. My mother loved good movies, especially the ones with well written stories, noble characters, and a moral message. I loved all the honorable, virtuous, classical old movies of her generation. To this day I am transformed by a good story with principled heros and heroines.
My mother is a perpetual optimist. She is Pollyanna and the “glad game,” the author of positive thinking. She has always given me hope and continuously lifted me to greater heights with her never-ending belief in an eventual happily ever after ending!
Humorously, for everything my mother represented while I was growing up, my father, Milton, appeared to be the polar opposite! How they came to have five children with him working hard at night and into the late afternoons, and her staying up late into the wee hours of the morning working on projects, is a mystery, if not a miracle! In his youth, my father, Milt, was a shy, fair haired, blond with wavy hair. However, by the time I met him, the curls had thinned and all but vanished. I thought he was extraordinarily handsome. Best of all, his dry sense of humor kept his children laughing and my mother often apologizing, when his tall tales and seemingly harmless chauvinistic jokes embarrassed her.
High priority on my father’s list of talents was his lifetime love of fishing. Fishing, and his great love for the sport, soared foremost above all of my father’s other passions and interests. He and his father and two brothers more than likely fished every fishing hole from Utah to Wyoming. Our monetary purchases were measured by the dozens of donuts he’d need to make in his chosen bakery profession, but our life values were analogized in humorous quotes about fish. Dad had a fishing joke for every occasion. My father truly was an amazing fisherman and he kept us supplied with an impressive “catch of the day,” although we were mostly unappreciative having usually witnessed the final demise as he gutted, cleaned, and prepared the slimy vertebrate. It was not until I began reading my mother’s history later in life that I realized how often my father went fishing. His long, continuous days of hard work were peppered with his needed and much deserved, fishing stress releaser. However in the days before cell phone and easy phone access, I’m sure my mother spent many desperate, if not lonely hours, handling life’s crises, unable to reach my father.
To my hardworking father, his work was his play, and he was an excellent provider in the days where men were expected to “bring home the bacon” to their stay at home wives who would “fry it up in a pan.” So why did I think of him as the Grinch to my mother’s Pollyanna? Not only were my parents complete opposites in their cultural likes and dislikes, they had contrasting senses of humor! Dad loved to tease my mother and give her the exact opposite reaction than she was looking for. This generous, loving man, who denied us nothing, loved to be the pretend “ba humbug” in my mother’s Christmas, much to my delight and the laughter of my siblings! Now retired and plagued with dementia, my father’s former life has changed. However, his sense of humor is still there, evident by the way he rolls his eyes and by the funny comments mumbled beneath his breath.
When I was a child, I admired my parents and wanted to be just like them. As I grew to maturity, I wanted to be different, better somehow. I would certainly never give the tired old speeches I’d grown up with! Then one day I caught myself saying something to one of my adult children that my mother would have said, realizing at the same time that I’d turned into my mother. Suddenly, it wasn’t such a bad thing after all!
Dedicated to my 87 year old parents for their 68th Wedding Anniversary (September 17, 1941).
You are right. I also thought your mother was cool. Isn't it great to be able to look at our parents and appreciate what they went through to be able to provide for us when we were kids.
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