INTRODUCTION: On January 22nd of every year, I write about my mom. This year, instead of something new, I may just take two or three from the past, in memories, and repost. Unless I edit, any references to age would be wrong. She was 62 when she died, I was 44. She’d be 90. My guess is that the only other reference would be the years gone, which would be 28 years today. Over the years, I’ve tended to use the same photos. This one was taken in 1956. It was taken a few days after her 22nd birthday. My 4-year-old self was in it, but I bit myself out a couple years ago it seems. This was written January 22, 2021.
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Every year on this date, I write about my mom. It morphs into something to include my dad. There’s always some variation in what is written, but only a little. It’s always long, using a stream of consciousness, my natural method of writing. I like it because it starts with a sentence and ends when it ends. The long versions are better because they tend to be therapeutic. Another time, I can do a more extended version. My mom’s history is fascinating.
This year, I’d like to keep it short. I’m trying to blank my mind so I can focus and not meander. The picture I used in the past was of my parents and me standing outside the University of Akron Law School taken in 1983. I have my cap and gown on. My dad is wearing what looks like a suit, but it would be out of character for him to wear one. No doubt he had on a clip-on tie. My mom is wearing a dark skirt and a white blouse.
The one shown here is from 1956. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon to have a family photo in black and white painted. And it is a family photo, in a sense. There’s a separate one of the two of us, with this being taken on the same date. She probably wanted the equivalent of a 1956 selfie. It was right after our birthdays, both in September. My mom had just turned 22, and I was four.
Enough of that. I’m getting off on a tangent. This is where I started talking about my mom and giving readers a history of her. I also mentioned how it was my dad who suggested I go to law school before I wasted too much more of my life. It’s an interesting story to me, and I’m sure I’ll give a history lesson on his life and times, too, but I’m digressing again.
January 22 is important because it is the date my mom died. That was 27 years ago, over a quarter century. My dad died six years later, and heck, that’s two decades ago. In Abe’s speech, “One score ago, my dad died.” So that’s a significant portion of my life I’ve been orphaned.
My mom died pretty young at the time, and I did two things. First, over the next year, on every conceivable holiday, I got a card for my mom and wrote to her about what was going on with the family. The cards were then sealed and remain so today. I found the cards in a large envelope not long ago and was tempted to open and read each. I didn’t. That wasn’t one of my promises. I just went off track again.
I made the promises in writing to her for the funeral, which I penned early that morning. Mom loved dancing and hiking. So, I promised I’d dance one more dance for her and take a hike for her. I kept both. My inspiration for what I wrote came from a tee shirt with a couple of words and a Bible passage: “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leadeth me beside the still waters.”
So, it seems this is a good place to end. To say she and they remain loved and missed is an understatement
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INTRODUCTION: On January 22nd of every year, I write about my mom. This year, instead of something new, I may just take two or three from the past, in memories, and repost. This is the second one. I think I’m only going to do one more. I should have started earlier.
As I skimmed this one, I noticed I briefly mentioned Kamala Harris. It pertained. I should have read closer. This may be one where I mentioned my sister.
Unless I edit, any references to age would be wrong. She was 62 when she died, and I was 44. She’d be 90. My guess is that the only other reference would be the years gone, which would be 28 years today. Over the years, I’ve tended to use the same photos. This one was taken in 1983 when graduating from the University of Akron School of Law.
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That’s Mrs. Edward Thompson to my right. I called her Mom. Here’s the thing, my mom died 24 years ago today, and I always put something on. I wasn’t going to today. My grandfather died 50 years ago, January 5, and while that’s a milestone year, I didn’t put anything about him either. My dad is in this picture. He’ll be gone 18 tears in April. It seems like no time has passed, but I remember it took forever to turn 18.
Yesterday, on a page for my hometown, where I’m an admin, I had to delete a comment because we don’t allow political comments. The person commenting does come to this page. I agree with her on nothing, but that’s okay. It just makes me right and her wrong. I could tag her, but I can’t find her here. I can only tag a person making a comment.
I’ll try to keep this short if I can. A newspaper article from the 1950s, I believe, was posted. The women were referred to the way I referred to my mom in the opening. It was pretty common back then. In fact, my mom would sign my report cards not as Dolores Thompson, but as Mrs. Edward Thompson.
A couple commented about women my age who had no personal identity back then. How could they when their real names weren’t used? That was the gist of it. But the bright one says that everything has changed now that Kamala Harris is vice president. So, I remember just that one comment. It would be fine on this page, although I find it stupid. It also made me angry, and that got worse the more I thought about it.
MLK wanted people not to judge on skin color but the content character. Even though in today’s world, that makes me a racist to some, I believe it. So, what, all of a sudden, a woman of nearly seven decades just became a woman because Kamala Harris is VP? The same would be true with gender.
First, I wouldn’t consider Harris a person who exemplifies character as far as getting ahead. If it takes her to make you feel like a woman, you have some real problems. She reminds me of a former First Lady who wasn’t proud of America until, of course, her husband became president. I find it all sad and pathetic, really.
But this about my mom. She was a woman. Just because she signed her name as Mrs. Edward Thompson didn’t take away from it. The problem with the person I went to school with, in addition to being a bozo, is she’s playing the identity game. It was my mom’s character that mattered. I can’t help that I have someone I went to high school with that really doesn’t care about women being women and all I mean by this is they’ve (people on the left) have elevated men identifying as women above women. You see it mostly in sports, but not completely.
So, what did my mom do? Well, she quit high school during her junior years. Now, if you know me, you know my mom turned 18 tears old, and I was born 12 days later. Your first thought would be she quit school because she got pregnant. You’d be wrong. She had a reason why she wanted to quit, although I’m not sure it was a good one in my opinion, which is worth nothing on this.
My mom was born in 1934, during the depression. I’m not sure she realized about being poor. I know her parents stood in soup lines in Cleveland. But then I’m thinking; everyone was doing it, so maybe it just seemed to be the way it was. Looking back, I know we were poor, but it didn’t seem like it. However, things seemed normal.
So, my mom becomes a beautician, which explains the wave in my hair in the pic, and she works at Ohio Bell. She decides on her extra dime a day to either get a Coke for lunch or take the bus home. She doesn’t complain about it.
Then we move to a small town, the one where I grew up. All women did not stay at home, contrary to what some seem to think. I had a friend, and both of his parents were schoolteachers. My mom’s parents owned a small bar, and she went to workdays for them. I spent a lot of time at that bar growing up and spent a lot of time on my own in my early years.
So, we end up living my sixth-grade year at the bar, upstairs. Lots of people packed into a small place. My dad was a fairly decent carpenter, and during that time, he and friends built our new home. So, when he wasn’t working his regular job, he and my mom worked on the new home, and on weekends, we were all there working. Yep, my mom was there shoveling and doing what needed to be done.
We moved into the new home just as I was starting seventh grade. There was still a lot of outside work to take care of, and we all pitched in. Keep in mind; my contribution wasn’t by choice. There are other things I’d have preferred. No one really gave me a choice, and what the heck, I lived there too.
When we get moved in, my mom starts an ICS course to finish high school and gets a realtor’s license. She ends up selling my in-laws their home, which had used the same plans. They had moved here from New York, so I end up with a wife in a way-much later.
My mom is now working at the bar, selling real estate, and my dad is helping with her correspondence course. She finally gets her high school diploma, and I find out later that we both graduated in the Class of ’71. What next? Well, not immediately, but my mom goes to college and gets an associate degree. I’m not even sure what it was in, but it doesn’t matter. I go to the graduation and there’s probably a pic like my law school graduation one, even though I look like I’m into the priesthood in the robe.
Now I’m not stupid, not wholly (a pun on the priesthood comment). Like all people, even me, I must say, had flaws. Those are character flaws, but we take those. I sed these things online asking if you had one hour to spend with someone, who would you choose? A lot of people put their mom. Not me. She should be here right now at age 86. When she died, it was kind of odd how it happened, and I’ve said to some it was she died twice. To have her back for an hour to be gone again is not a choice I’d make. I mean, maybe if it was upped to a month or something, then perhaps.
To the person caterwauling about not being a woman because my mom may have been known as Mrs. Edward Thompson at times, I have to say you’re probably right. You have not achieved womanhood but guess what, my mom did. And, she did not have to define herself as such because of Kamla Harris. She can be defined as such because she was better than her, and frankly, better than you.
Even though I haven’t read it, now I feel better.