During a week in which we’re celebrating Mom in the homestretch to 90, we bid farewell to another larger-than-life old dame. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did nothing less than make this country a more equitable place, long before she was appointed to the Supreme Court. Her brilliant legal mind; her clarity of expression; her late-in-life rock star presence; her commitment to family and country; her straight-man sense of humor—all of these things earn her the highest honor I can bestow. I declare RBG to be “porch worthy.” Yes, I can imagine Mom and I on my Delta front porch, inviting RBG to join us for a beverage. I can see exactly how it would have played out: I would make the introductions, and after about 5 minutes it would be all about Mom and RBG solving problems and saving the world. And bragging about their grandkids. Laughter would abound.
‘Tis I, doing one of my many impersonations of Mom. I call this particular impression “Mom And Her Fresh CHRONICLE.” Mom and her weekly MILLARD COUNTY CHRONICLE PROGRESS, a.k.a. THE CHRONICLE, are inseparable when she gets her mitts on a new issue.
Mom has never personally subscribed to Delta’s weekly paper, because she is too impatient. She has to read it hot off the press—whole hours before it could possibly show up in her mailbox. Getting a copy in her mail on Wednesday is unacceptable to her. She gets her copy the minute they hit the local stores on Tuesday afternoons. When Mom moved in with my brother in St. George after she broke her hip, my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless bought Mom a CHRONICLE subscription to be sent to her there. Mom was forced to read her beloved hometown newspaper out of the mailbox on Wednesday’s or Thursday’s, depending on when it showed up in my brother’s mail. I am convinced Mom decided to move to MCR in Delta, just so she could somehow get her CHRONICLE on Tuesday afternoons again. Since Mom moved into MCR almost two years ago, my Sister Who Wishes To Remain Nameless and her husband have faithfully delivered Mom her CHRONICLE every Tuesday, the minute a copy is available for purchase.
Jump back to 2017, before I sold my Delta place (a.k.a. Momo and Popo’s house), and before Mom broke her hip. Here’s what Mom’s Tuesday schedule looked like:
8:30 AM. Mom saunters over to my living room, where she sits in a puffy chair and asks, “Should we see if Pegetha wants to go for a drink today?” I don’t know why she ever asked. Of course, Peggy (Mom’s best friend) wanted to get a drink. Of course, Mom and Peggy wanted to be driven all over the county to see what’s what and who’s who. And of course, Mom would call Peggy to see for sure that she wanted to go with us.
9AM. Mom and I get in her car and I drive us to Peggy’s house. I hit the horn.
9:01 AM. Peggy gets in the passenger side of the car.
9:02 AM. I order 2 Pepsi’s and a Diet Coke from the Cardwell’s drive-up window.
9:02:45 AM. A bickering ensues about whose turn it is to pay for the drinks. We also chat with the gals working at Cardwell’s, cuz we haven’t seen them since…..yesterday at 9:02:45 AM. The car behind us at the drive-up wishes we’d pull away, but the driver waves at us cheerfully anyway. The driver knows who we are because we are sitting in either the Helenmobile or the Pegethamobile. Mom and Peggy each have their own vanity plates, and they are famous and beloved women of Delta. Because of their fame, we can get away with a lot of things others can’t. I’m just the chauffeur.
9:07 AM. I drive the two Old Girls across the valley, while we drink and once again solve the problems of the world—while catching up on whatever it is we need to catch up on since yesterday.
11:00 AM. We drop off Peggy at her place, where Mom reminds her it’s CHRONICLE day, and Peggy says to Mom, “Ours won’t be here until the mail tomorrow.” Same sentences, every Tuesday.
11:01 AM. I park us in front of Mom’s house, as close as I can get her to her front door, where she asks if I’ll drive uptown to buy her a CHRONICLE as soon as it’s out—as if I don’t already know it’s my job.
From 11:02-whenever THE CHRONICLE is available. Mom searches for a pair of reading glasses with both lenses. This is a task which usually takes Mom a bigly chunk of time.
CHRONICLE o’ clock PM. I drive to fetch a copy of THE CHRONICLE from Jubilee because it’s the closest place to get it.
30 seconds later. I’m back to hand off the paper to Helen Sr., knowing she will be happily hunkered down and glued to it for the rest of the day. Finally, I can get a nap in.
8:00 PM. Mom comes over to my house to go to sleep early on my couch, because it’s been another busy CHRONICLE day for Mom.
I think this is Thanksgiving dinner for our family at the Palomar in the early 2000’s. My Grandma Wright was the unofficial guest of honor. Mom was head cook.
Not everyone can live next door to their mother-in-law without bigly problems. We lived next door to my dad’s parents, and the only issue I can recall is that Mom felt a bit embarrassed if dad’s mom—who we called Momo—came to our door and the living room looked like a family was living in it. But that was on Mom. I don’t think Momo ever gave Mom a snooty judgement about her lived-in living room. In fact, Mom has told many a story of going out to get the clothes off our clothesline out back, and finding socks that had been hung to dry with holes in them had miraculously been darned. Momo strikes again. Mom took no offense. She considered it as the help it was, and not as a condemnation of her ability to take care of her own family.
Recipes got traded between Mom and Momo. They watched each other’s homes and cars, and collected each other’s mail, if one or the other was out of town. They didn’t belong to the same clubs, but they liked hearing about each others activities. They did Relief Society stuff together. They were in the same ward, of course. They really couldn’t get rid of each other, nor did they seem to want to.
As my grandparents got older and more bound to the inside of their house, I saw them less. At dinner, every evening without fail, Mom or Dad would ask, “Has anyone checked on the folks today?”—meaning Momo and Popo. If somebody hadn’t done it yet, Mom would come up with a message or a goodie to send over with me to their place, so I could verify Momo and Popo were alive and kicking. It was an important lesson: Love your neighbor. Yet again, kindness rules.
Boundaries are good. Good fences make good neighbors. But looking out for your Momo and Popo is always proper. Have you loved your neighbor today?
I don’t know anything about where and when Dad snapped this photo of Mom and his car. I have absolutely no story to tell about it, or really anything to yammer on about beyond saying Mom is far from 90 in the photo. I can, however, tell you that I have teased Mom many times about how I think she only married Dad because he had a car, and bees, and indoor plumbing. Mom gets a kick out of my musings about her chasing Dad for those three reasons. I am certain the fact that they were crazy for each other had nothing at all to do with them getting married.
Half of A Bow Tie o’ the Day is better than none at all.
Hey, earlier this week, I posted this pic in a set of pix about Mom and Skitter, but it’s the perfect photo for what I’m writing about this morning, which is Mom and Suzanne. They have been chums from the beginning. I think they trade secrets about me, and they conspire against me—if only to keep me on the straight and narrow. I am not necessary to their conversations. They talk sewing and cooking and house decor. Blah, blah, blah. After one of Suzanne’s surgeries, I took her to Mom’s and dropped her off for a week of recovery, while I drove back up to Ogden with Rowan so he wouldn’t have to miss any school. Mom pampered Suzanne with lots of quiet and plenty of tasty food, as we knew she would. I wasn’t worried about either of them. When I picked up Suzanne at the end of the week, she was nearly healed.
One of the first times Suzanne and Mom met was in 1985. We were all in Mom’s kitchen, and Mom was concocting cookies—chocolate chip, I think. (No surprise there.) The three of us gabbed and guffawed about who-knows-what. Mom plopped the cookie dough on the baking sheet and put it in the oven. I think she even sat down with us for three or four minutes. (Mom rarely sat down in her kitchen: She ruled it and hovered around guests from a standing position, always at the ready to start cooking something else, or wash a dish.) So there we were—just the three of us chatting away in Mom’s kitchen kingdom, when Mom jumped up and screamed, “I forgot to finish putting all the flour in the cookie dough!”
She did not skip a beat. She flew to the oven, retrieved the cookie sheet, and scraped the partially baked cookies back into the mixing bowl. She folded-in the rest of the flour, then plopped the cookie dough back on the sheet, and stuck it back in the oven—hoping the treats might work out. OMGolly, if I—or anybody else—had tried to correct the same mistake the way Mom did, my cookies would have come out barely worthy of going into the trash. But Mom’s “ruined” cookies were sooooooooo yummerific. It was an impressive feat to see. I think it was right at that moment when Suzanne decided she better keep me, if only to be around Mom performing her miracles.
Mom has always humored my whims. She’d gladly wear a Bow Tie o’ the Day for me any time I ask. And she did. Many times. And I’m sure she will again. Many times. This photo was taken at her home on August 26, 2017.
After Dad died, whenever I was in Delta, Mom made two or three daily trips across the alley to my Delta house—carrying her little glass of Pepsi. If weather permitted, we hung out on the front porch. In inclement weather, she sat in my living room—where we chatted and laughed and solved the problems of the world. Then Mom would be off to her house again to cook, or read The Chronicle or The Tribune for the umpteenth time, or otherwise putter around her full, but empty, rooms.
Mid-evening, Mom would show up at my place again to spend the night. She never slept in her house alone after Dad was gone. She wasn’t afraid of being alone at night. It just made her miss him too much. I always offered her a bed, but she liked sleeping on our couch, where she could hear the noises of our house: the tv, dishes being done, the washer, dogs being let out to potty, etc. She would wake early and walk the 40 feet back to her house, where she climbed into a bed that wasn’t hers and Dad’s, in a bedroom that hadn’t been theirs. She would sleep a few more hours, and our routine would begin again.
Such a simple sight to see: Mom, in her outfit of mixed pj’s and coats, holding a tiny glass of Pepsi, strolling up the sidewalk—just to sit with me, so we could share good gossip and cure the ills of the world. Memories can be quick snapshots in your head. One of my deepest felt “snapshots” is simply Mom walking slowly to my front door, glass in hand.
TIE O’ THE DAY brings you a selection of pix of Mom and Skitter during some of our visits with Mom at MCR. Mom has always been kind to all of God’s creatures—except ants, flies, mosquitoes, and mice, of course. Even so, Mom has never been a petter of anybody’s pets. But for some reason, Skitter and Mom hit it off, from the get-go. I’m sure it has a lot to do with Skitter being abused prior to her life with us. Mom’s got a whole diatribe she goes into about people who abuse animals, which usually ends with, “They oughta be shot.” Hey, you’ll get no argument to the contrary from me.
Anyhoo… Last week’s devastating winds here in Centerville were a thing to behold. The tree carnage was incalculable in Davis County. The damage to homes and cars was hit-and-miss, but homes and cars that did get hit, got hit bigly. Thankfully, our home was mostly missed. Skitter was the real victim of the winds, as far as our people and things are concerned. How do you explain the sound and feel of torrential wind to a mutt who is already chronically skittish from her previous abusive life? The power was out, so there was no cranking up music or the television to cover the sound of the storm. You have to understand that our tv is always on. When Suzanne and I are out of the house, we leave the television on for Skitter so she knows we’ll come. back home. Skitter is not stoopid. She knows if the television is on, I will definitely be back. When we go out of town and Suzanne’s sister stays here with Skitter, she knows the television is to remain on if she has to leave the house. It’s the law!
Anyhoo, again… With winds gusting into hurricane range, Skitter still had to go potty. Winds can’t prevent that need. I guiltily had to push her out the patio door. Out she went, into the bluster. She stared at me with eyes that said, “What did I do wrong?” I had to turn away. When I turned back to her, she was dutifully pottying—claws clutching the grass to keep her from being blown away in the awful wind. But I noticed something that made me feel relieved. Skitter’s pee was falling almost straight down into the ground. I immediately thought, “Skitter’s got this!” I knew for a fact Skitter had braved stronger winds in her life. We had spent tons of time at our tumbleweed ranch in Delta, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain. I had seen Skitter’s pee fly sideways in the winds o’ Millard County at least a half-dozen times, and it was dropping straight down in the once-in-a-hunnerd-years storm in Centerville. After all was said and done, and despite its wrath, last week’s storm o’ wild winds was just a hullaballoo of wimpy city wind trying to blow with the bigly winds o’ Delta, Utah!
[Yesterday, I re-posted a photo of Mom slicing her cheese bread. I told about the importance of cheese bread at our family holiday meals. Today, here’s a second re-post of the recipe.]
Five red Bow Ties o’ the Day are proud to provide a recipe we think you’ll find tasty. It’s cheesy and bready. Who could find fault with that?
Actually, I really can’t call this a “recipe.” Mom’s recipes ranged from easy-peasy to intricate and near-impossible. This is a simple one. Three ingredients are all you need. You’ll also need an oven.
1 loaf of French bread. 1 stick or 1/2 stick of butter. And one jar of Kraft Old English Spread.
Lay a sheet of foil across a cookie sheet. You do not want to have to clean baked-on cheese off your cookie sheet. Use the foil.
Hand-mix the cheese spread and butter together until it’s creamy. Mom generally uses the whole stick of butter, although I’ve seen her use just half a stick. I always use just the half.
With a bread knife, skin ALL the crust off the French bread. Ditch the crust.
Cover the bottom of the skinned loaf with the cheese/butter spread, then place it on the foil-covered cookie sheet. Continue to cover the sides and top of the loaf with the cheese/butter spread. Spread the spread as evenly as you can. Since the size of French bread loaves vary, you might or might not use the entire amount of spread. Plus, you’ll definitely want to experiment with how thick you like your cheese spread layer to be. If you want a thin layer of the cheese/butter mixture on the entire loaf, you’ll probably have enough to cover two loaves.
Bake for 10-ish minutes, at 350 degrees. Ovens vary, you know. Experiment with how crusty—if at all—you like the top of your cheese bread to be. The more you experiment with the variables, the more cheese bread you’ll “have to” eat.🤤
I recommend you slice the cheese bread (an electric knife works best) while it’s still hot. And put it on the table hot. But it’s still yummy when it has cooled off.
As any good cook knows, even with an easy recipe the taste is in the details. Mom’s excellent cooking was the result of tweaking good recipes to make them better, as well as her knack for timing. Still, she cooked primarily by sight, smell, and taste. Measuring ingredients wasn’t much of a concern to her. She guesstimated a lot. That’s what makes it difficult to pin down her actual recipes.
If someone wanted a recipe, she’d give them one. She’d also invite them to come to the house to watch her make what they were asking about. Her complicated candy-type creations are especially almost impossible to re-create, even if you watched her make it and tried to write everything down. She was always changing the way she did it or adding a new twist or a different ingredient. And, of course, exact measurements were not always Mom’s way.
Oh. About the potato chips and Diet Coke in the photo. Those food staples are for you to snack on while you make the cheese bread. Substitute a bottle of wine for the Diet Coke, if you are so inclined. Chocolate is also allowed.
