My mother's birthday is tomorrow. This weekend we had to get out the calculator to determine just how old she will be. And even now, we are still not 100% sure. I suppose I inherited her math skills. We want to say that it begins with a 6, and is on the low side of the sixes. I now have 40 years of memories that I can pretty clearly remember with my mom. For a lot of people, memories with mom typically include things like baking cakes or pies. As for me, my typical memories are enveloped in laughter and some of the most odd scenarios one might ever expect to encounter with your mom.
Memory #1: The Turn Lane Christmas Box, 1986
We'd been doing some last minute Christmas shopping at Gwinnett Place Mall. This probably involved her buying me a lot of new clothes with money she really needed to spend somewhere else, taking them home, and wrapping them to put under the tree. Headed down Old Norcross Road, the 5 lane part with 2 lanes going in different directions with a turn lane in the middle, we see a fantastic box sitting in the turn lane. It was about the size of 6 stacked shoe boxes and was wrapped in Christmas paper much like presents look on TV. You know, the box had a lid that was wrapped in a way that made it so that all you had to do to get to your present was lift off the wrapped lid of the box to see your prize sitting inside. We both saw it. Neither of us said a word until we were well past it. I'm sure our minds were racing in parallel thought, "What was in that damn box back there? What if it's something really good? Someone has lost their Christmas cargo and they don't even know it!" About a mile past the box, one of us mentions it and no sooner than the words are out of the mouth, we are doing a u-turn to go back and see if we saw what we thought we saw. We pass it the second time and confirm that this is a special find: a glorious Christmas present that some poor dumbass (one of mom's favorite words) has dropped in transit. We u-turn one more time and as we are passing it, mom comes up with a plan, albeit a little too late. We u-turn yet again but this time with the plan laid out. She tells me she is going to pull up in the turn lane and it's my job to jump out of the car and retrieve the box. We overshoot the runway one more time and our 4th or 5th u-turn soon follows. Finally, she puts the car just in front of the box. It's dusk and mall shopper traffic is zooming on each side of me. I jump out and run up to the box. Oh boy! We have just scored!!! What is in it? This is the best thing ever! I kick the box and it won't budge. Oh man. It's heavy. I try to lift it but it's too heavy so I remove the lid. At first I think it might be packing materials surrounding our find, but then I realize it's cat litter. Cat litter and thousands of cat turds. I remember looking up at my mom with her hands on the wheel of her AMC Spirit with her big, blue eyes glued on me and I looked down and the cat turds and then back at her repeatedly. Such disappointment. We thought we'd fallen upon some treasure. "Dumbasses". We laughed all the way home.
#2: The Biker named Igor, the Gremlin, and Buford Highway, 1977
Mom has a history of really ridiculous automobiles. When the Pacer came out (for you kids that don't remember, it looked like a rolling terrarium) she really, really wanted one, but she opted for a used AMC Gremlin instead. This was a red, triangular car with no air conditioner, tan pleather seats, windows that you actually had to "roll" down, and frequent engine issues. Seat belts? I don't think it even had them. In fact, mom would often allow me to sit on pillows in the front seat to give me height. One time in the heat of summer, I was perched on my pillows in the front seat. Mom and I were cruising down the road with the windows down with our sunglasses on. The wind was whipping around my layered light blonde hair and mom's Farrah cut blonde layers and waves. I'm sure The Bee Gees or Wings was blasting out the terrible sounding speakers. I didn't know it was going on until we stopped at a red light. When you are 7, you are very unaware of letchy menfolk eyeballing you. We stopped and I noticed the cat calls from the next lane. Mom looked over and rolled her eyes at these teenagers. I looked over and gave them the biggest toothy/toothless smile a 7 year old can give. Maybe that day is when I first became aware of my own feminine charm. But forget those boys, let me get to the part about Igor and the other biker. Having a single mom (at this time anyway) meant that most of the time, I was dragged along with her no matter what she was doing. This included outings to her friends' places for evening entertainment. One night in the time before cell phones, we broke down on Buford Highway at about midnight. The Gremlin simply crapped out and no amount of banging the battery posts and lifting the hood seemed to help. Did I mention that my mom can fix your transmission should you ever need it? She's good like that and she taught me to be pretty self-sufficient through her example. We sat in the car under the moonlight while mom wondered what to do. When Igor (the skinny one) and his friend whose name I don't recall (the fat one) pulled up on their bikes, all decked out in leather, I can't imagine how scared mom must have been. Lucky for us, these bikers were kind and helpful. They offered to help us. A) Jump on the back of their bikes and they'll take us home to our apartment. B) Help us by pushing the car off of the roadway and try to fix her up. Choice A was simply not an option. Choice B seemed like the better choice, but what to do with the 7 year old child in her care? Would I sit *in* the Gremlin as they pushed it off of the road and into the gas station parking lot? No, that would be dangerous. Mom made the best choice she could: she and fat biker would push the Gremlin off the road and Igor would stay with me and babysit on other side of the road. I stood there watching as they pushed the Gremlin down and over and into a parking lot. That might be the first time I heard and identified a stoner laugh. Igor tried talking to me a little, but mostly just reminded me of a hairy Keep On Trucking man by Robert Crumb. Igor held my hand a took me across the busy road to reunite me with my mom. That's when I learned that in impossible situations, my mom always made the best decision. I also learned that stoney, crusty biker guys have big hearts. You *can* trust a guy named Igor.
I could go on and on, but I'm feeling like what I'm writing is a little self-indulgent. I have so many memories with my fabulous mom. My boys are now 8 and 10 and I don't think we have any moments like the 2 I've described here. I regret that already. Making memorable times with people you love, especially your children, happens quite by chance. And just maybe, because it was so often just the two of us "against with world" (oh yes I DID just refer to a Helen Reddy song. Look it up), we had more adventures than I have with my own children. Maybe it was because I grew up in a different time and culture. Maybe it was because I had a single mom. Maybe it was simply a unique dynamic between her and me. I'm just glad that over the years and in the years to come, I always have an ally, someone who gets me, someone who understands when nobody else does.
So, happy birthday, Sharon. You always were the prettiest, funniest and smartest mom. You were my rock and I hope that I am yours. You didn't have the benefit of wonderful parents, yet you are a wonderful mother capable of making wise decisions for your daughter...capable of unimaginable selflessness and endless love for those that matter to you. May the laughter continue for many, many years. You'll be 100 and I'll be 80 and we'll stumble into some crazy scenarios or share inside jokes while others look on and shake their heads, wondering what these 2 old bags are up to.
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