Ma Krenner and I were out on the front lawn on a late summer afternoon. The sun was just starting to hide behind the houses across the street. I have no idea how old I was at the time, maybe kinniegarten or first grade.
“Open your mouth and close your eyes and then you’ll get a big surprise!”
My eyelids went down and I opened my yap just as instructed. Beckrich’s blue-green house was the last thing I saw before my eyes closed. “Okay, now close your mouth!”
A bunch of tiny seeds fell on my tongue. Our lawn had a few of those foxtail weeds… you know, the ones that look like little corndogs. This kind:
Mom put the corndog end of the yellow foxtail in my mouth and used my teeth to strip off all of the seeds. When I opened my eyes I did the math when I saw the blank stem in her hand. I evacuated the yellow foxtail trimmings from my mouth and after the first initial few seconds of thinking Ew, that’s not a goddamn surprise! subsided I chuckled. I couldn’t wait to try this little prank on my friends Jason and Todd (I don’t think I ever got around to it… either that or I gave it a good try they weren’t as gullible as I was). I’m guessing she learned that from her pops Freeman, or perhaps her childhood friend Roy she always talked about.
Shortly after that my dad came running outside yelling “LEE WHAT ARE YOU DOING?? I JUST SPRAYED THE LAWN!” (Not true, I just threw that in to spice things up and add a little drama.)
That’s one of my favorites amongst the mountain of fun Ma Krenner memories. There’s tons of them. One of the earliest ones is riding in the blue bike seat on the back of her bike to National, the grocery store that used to exist in the area that is now occupied the corpse of a former Home Depot. All I really remember is holding on to the blue wooden handle that looked like a Lincoln Log and usually getting one of those little bottles of grape drink (not grape juice) with the foil lid that you peeled off. Sometimes the bike was left behind and we took the red city bus to the grocery store instead. I loved the bus. I loved the way the floors looked and the short green tinted windows that lined the top of it. She always let me put the coins in the slot (SO AWESOME) and pull the cord when it was time to stop. Mom also taught us the fun trick of cutting heads off of pictures of people in catalogs and pasting them on other bodies which made for some priceless comedy, particularly when you mixed baby heads and bodies with adults. You meddling kids and your Photoshop manipulation capabilities these days don’t know how good you have it.
In 10th grade I spotted a shark attack shirt at JC Penney that I found to be quite amusing: the side of the shirt had a half dozen slits in it and they were painted red as if a shark had taken a chomp out of it. I know, hilarious, right? I became obsessed with having this shirt and getting it prior to the high school jazz band trip to Duluth. Why I wanted it so badly or thought it was so hilarious I have no idea but I bugged the shit out of poor Ma to drive me to Penney’s and get that goddamned shirt. She gave in and drove me out there. I’m sure the jazz band trip would have been ruined had I not been wearing my hilarious shark bite shirt. Who knows, maybe I would have been attacked by an actual shark? I’ve heard they’ve been known to roam the streets of Duluth when they tire of swimming around in Lake Superior.
Mom also fed my magazine addiction. Countless issues of METAL EDGE, Circus, and Hit Parader magazines were thrown into the shopping cart at Cub Foods during the 1980s by yours truly and not once did she say “no way José” – thank goodness for that. Not only because my name isn’t José, but also because those magazines (along with MAD, another one I threw into the cart on a monthly basis) were my internet.. my BIBLES, not to mention the wallpaper in my room. The foldout posters (usually some half-assed live shot of someone like Vince Neil or Klaus Meine) and full page color pix of my favorite dudes who looked like ladies filled the blank spots of my walls that my KISS posters didn’t cover. I went for a good 4 or 5 year stretch where I didn’t miss an issue. How else was I going to learn about the new Motley Crue record that was coming out?
Although I’m sure it was probably a joint decision between mom & dad I remember that fateful day mom peeked into my room and asked if I’d be interested in taking guitar lessons. We all know how that turned out… I still like to tinker around with guitars and strum a few chords every now and again.
It stinks not being able to hang with mom, not just on Mom’s Day but the rest of the year as well. Her leg is currently in a state of brokenness after a fall on the ice last month. By the way, ice, you can go straight to hell and melt for that one. How dare you hurt my mom. That kind of news isn’t fun to receive when you’re 1,200 miles away. She’s getting better but it would still be nice to be able to drive over and play some UNO and do jumping jacks with her or something.
To those of you running amok getting flowers and heading to see your moms and/or momlike persons in your life, cheers to you and said moms/momlike persons. Without moms I’m guessing we probably wouldn’t be here. How much would that suck? I guess we wouldn’t know any different because we wouldn’t have existed to begin with. That being said it probably wouldn’t suck at all. You can’t accuse something of being suckatory under such circumstances. But yaknowwhatI’msayin’.
Love ya Ma Krenner, I hope you’re back on your feet sooner than later! And here’s a special shout out to my lovely mom-in-law Mary as well – we miss the crap out of you two moms and hope you have a super spiffy Mother’s Day. Here’s a round of virtual margaritas that we’ll virtually consume in honor of both of you and all of the other kickass moms out there in the universe.
Clink.
