It’s Mother’s Day. At least here in Brooklyn NY it is, you’ll have to check your local listings and time zones as far as your area is concerned.
That being said I miss my maw. Not that I thought it would get any easier but it has been almost 5 years that the wifey and I have lived in Brooklyn NY, 1,200 miles away from our peeps in MN. Every year when a holiday rolls around – be it Christmas, Thanksgiving, Mum’s Day, Dad’s Day, National Donut Day, whatever – even just random days, or maybe more like all of the time, we still miss our tribe members just as much as that first really weird Thanksgiving in Brooklyn away from them all.
Whenever this day comes where we acknowledge the sheer importance of the person who plopped us out I look back at the many great times I had with my mom. Such as our trip to Disneyworld in the early 80s:
And here we are at an awards show:
Oops.. wait. That’s not us. I’ve never even been to Disneyworld or an awards show, plus I don’t ever remember wearing clothes like that. My bad, I must have been looking in the wrong family photo album. Let me try this again. Here:
There we go.
That was taken in my grandma and grampa’s basement on Palace Avenue in St. Paul. Every time I walk into a grocery store and smell turkey, chicken, or whatever kind of boid they happen to be roasting I instantly time travel back to that basement where we spent many of our holidays. My siblings have said the same thing. That’s my sister Eesa in the left corner. It appears as if just minutes before this was snapped we both either a) had too much to drink or b) were awakened from a nap. And hey, check my mom out, what a total babe. I couldn’t have been more than a handful of years old at that time.. certainly no older than 12 or 13. As young as I was at the time I have random flashbacks of the narrow white-and-greyish-stripes-on-red getup that she’s wearing in that photo. I wouldn’t be surprised if she made that (and what my sis was wearing as well). She’s quite the factory of creativity herself. My favorite stuffed bunny at that age was also of that color scheme, stripes and all. Between my foxy mom and my handsome pops it’s no wonder I grew up to be so strikingly handsome – I’m often mistaken for Fabio, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, and in recent years Zac Efron.
What can I say about my mom that I haven’t already (Exhibit A, along with the many other similar writings I’ve made over the years)? She has made so many sacrifices for my siblings and I that if we compiled them all into a list we’d need the length of a roll of toilet paper to write everything on. When I was in 8th grade mom drove me all the way to White Bear Lake so that I could buy my first electric guitar and amp that I slaved away for in the corn fields (until I had enough money and got myself fired by means of intentionally crappy job performance). A handful of years later when I was in the Park High Jazz ensemble and needed more volume than my 5W Gorilla amp provided not only did she drive me out to a half dozen stores in St. Paul to go amp shopping for something with more beef, but she was also the one to call my dad and get approval to fund it. Dad worked nights at 3M – I’d go on about that for a paragraph or two but hey, this is Mother’s Day.
My Yamaha amp that turned me into a rockstar overnight.
Stay focused, Me.
Mom had to call my pops and wake him up to ask if it was okay to spend what I’m sure was a lot of money on a new amp for me. When you get to the crux of the biscuit of what she was doing she was basically asking him “Hey, can we spend a lot of hard-earned money on a large heavy box that’s going to sit next to our bedroom wall and torture you as you try to sleep?” She was willing to take that bullet for me (calling my dad and waking him up) as was my dad (having to not only pay for said amp but be subjected to the sonic outpourings I constantly made with it during his peak sleep hours). These were the days before digital amp modeling and headphone outputs on amps that didn’t sound like harsh tinny ear-destroying garbage. If you wanted to play your electric guitar you plugged into your amp and played through speakers. Headphones were for listening to music on your Walkman and nothing else. Add my boom box playing KISS ALIVE! into the mix as I was whittling away at learning the riffage through my new amp and it made for quite the wall of sound.
Alice & Claude circa 1982ish
Mom and Dad’s Moms
I happened to be fortunate enough to have 2 awesome grandmas, Alice and Gert (and how about those names? With those it’s like they had no choice but to be cool chicks, it was just built in). To the left is a photo of my grams Alice in 1984, that’s her 2nd husband Claude, he always called her “Al”. Gramma Alice is probably going to be hangin’ with my mom today, yet another log on the wish-I-could-be-there fire. Although she’d probably never admit to it Alice was a super amazing painter – she took Japanese painting classes in the 1990s and was really good at it. She also bought me my prize possession for my 10th birthday, a KISS Creatures of the Night 10th anniversary tour t-shirt which I literally wore for at least 2 years straight until it became so thin it started to dissolve. Was really sad to see that one go. We washed it by hand and I even went so far as to try and touch it up with white and red fabric paint toward the end of its life where the print was severely faded. A few years ago Alice saved a KISS-related newspaper clipping and when she gave it to me said “I didn’t know KISS and his band were still playing!” Gotta love grandmas. Interesting that her name is 1 letter away from my favorite KISS album ALIVE!…
My only shirt from 1983-85.
Check out this stellar piece of jean jacket flare. That’s Gertie. For her 60th (I think?) birthday her chillens made these big buttons and handed one out to everyone in the family and “surprised” her. Mine as you can see has some major water damage from being worn with great pride over the years and has been retired to my button hall of fame board. The story behind this is my Uncle Rick said “MA. Stick up your middle finger and smile at the camera!” Whenever this legendary photo was brought up she would always immediately start chuckling and say “I had no idea what that meant at the time!” Suuuuure you didn’t. Gertie made the best chocolate chip cookies ever, a recipe that is still a staple in our family to this day. I can’t make them because I eat the dough and by the time what’s left gets made into cookies I feel like a total cow.
I didn’t think much of it as a kid but sure miss Mother’s Day house-hopping. We’d usually make flapjacks in the morn and bring mom a tray in bed, head out to see Alice, and then top things off with a trip to Gertie’s in the aforementioned roasted turkey-scented house. Those were da days.
Let me not forget a special shout-out to my mom-in-law Mary who I haven’t known quite as long as my mom and my mom and dad’s moms but rocks just as hard as all of the aforementioned ladies with her undying Mom-ly give-give-giveness. Hopefully one of these days we can all convene in Cabo again to saturate our skin with sun and liver with margaritas.
Here’s to rad moms all across the world and to the wifey and I actually getting to spend a Mother’s Day in upcoming years hanging out in the same room with OUR moms. Cheers to you if you’re lucky enough to spend time with yours today!
