Here it is Mother's Day. For the first time in my life neither of my mother-figures is around to acknowledge directly. My mother passed on a couple of months back, and both my grandmothers are gone as well. I've always been close to my mothers-in-law as well. They have generally welcomed me with open arms. My first wife's mother, Laverne, is a very sweet lady, and still living, though I really haven't had much contact with her in a long time. Mami, my second wife's mother, literally adopted me into the family, calling me "son" at every opportunity. She passed as well several years ago. I have only met Cat Dancing's mother once, she tends to be a bit reclusive. She lives with another daughter in Fort Worth, but we haven't been in contact with her for awhile for various reasons.
I find myself, then, to be a bit motherless this year.
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| Doris | |
I've always had a very conflicted relationship with the two women in closest "mother" proximity to me. My biological mother, Doris, gave me up when I was four. Intellectually I can appreciate the pressure she was under to let me go. It can't have been easy. Her marriage had broken up, she had two young kids, and no job. I say I understand intellectually, but emotionally I have always had a very hard time with it.
I never got close to Momma. We shared a lot of traits. I got my love of books from her. I was only allowed to visit her a couple of times a year. It was on one of those visits in New Mexico that she took me on my first visit to a library. I was amazed at all the books that were free to read. I never really lived with her except for a year or so just recently. She needed a place to live, and I was living alone, I got her to move in. Ultimately, when I married Cat, I let Momma have my home until she got into subsidized housing. She lived there until she passed on this year.
I feel bad about feeling distant from her, but she never actually raised me. My brother Steve actually returned to her at age 8 and lived with her, her second husband, and their two kids. So, he was there, and my half siblings, Tim and Laura, were raised there.
I admit I felt some envy that they, and my eventual nieces and nephews, got all of the attention I felt I should have gotten. My mother died in January, 2011.
I know she always regretted the breach between us, but I suppose I could never bring myself to forgive and forget.
My paternal grandmother, Mildred, or Mom, had her own demons. We all lived with them constantly. She herself was the product of a dysfunctional home. Mom's mother died when Mom was born. Her father remarried and fathered a son. Mom's stepmother tried to completely shut her out and treated her cruelly. She ended up moving away to live with her aunt and uncle at the age of 10, I believe.
I'll never know exactly why she was so determined to take on two small grandchildren to raise. She never let us forget that we were her "cross to bear". She let everyone know that it was her Christian duty to take us in when "nobody wanted us." I'd heard her tell friends and relatives about it many times during my life.
I've never understood why she had such an animosity toward my mother. I know there were many times she refused to let Momma visit us, and she made it difficult when we did get to see her. Even to a small child it was very obvious how she felt and the various ways she tried to manipulate us against Momma. Mom never gave me the same story twice about what happened in those early days. She offered several excuses over the years for her treatment of my mother, but none I ever heard had any substance in fact.
I'm fairly certain that her manipulations over the years did in fact have a direct effect on how I viewed my mother, but, at the same time, those same sorts of things served to drive me away from Mom as well. I just stopped believing anything she said.
Mom died in 2009 at the age of 98, just a few months after my grandfather died at 100. She had suffered with dementia for several years before she died, and she had antagonized many friends and relatives before that.
I'd always received more unconditional love and support from mothers-in-law, than I ever had from Mom.
Through some counseling and Avatar I've been reaching some peace with all of that. I've been working with my issues of abandonment. It is no longer such a sore point as it was. I even understand what drove them both to do the things they did, somewhat. It just remains a fact of my life.
My love and appreciation go out to all those mothers out there who are doing, or did, your best to raise your kids. Yes, to Mom and Momma too.
Happy Mother's Day
Once upon a time there was a UFO joke. It seems a flying saucer landed near a gas station pump island. The alien hops out and addresses one of the pumps. "Take me to your leader." Nothing happened. A bit louder he says "Take me to your leader!" Still nothing, one more time he says "TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER!!!" Nothing. He kicked the pump and said, "WELL, IF YOU'D TAKE YOUR FINGER OUT OF YOUR EAR YOU COULD HEAR ME!" And he left.
Presumably without his trading stamps.
Perhaps he'd have fared better if he'd landed on the signal hose.
Remember trading stamps? Remember pumps like these? Remember driving across the driveway and hearing "ding, ding."
Back in the early '60's I worked pumping gas from one of these at our station at Seward Junction. (Intersection Highway 29 and Highway 183, Williamson County, Texas.) Those were the days when you pulled up at the pumps at a station and someone else pumped your gas for you. Often, they would also check your oil and water, air your tires, and wash your windshield. The pumps worked a lot like some of the self-serve pumps today, without the digital display and the credit card slots, and without the pipe in bad music and announcements. Your musical accompaniment came from your gas jockey whistling while he worked, perhaps.
It was a little less automatic, as well. There is a crank on these on the far side of the pump that you wound up to clear the display numbers, the nozzle was placed in the tank, the lever below it was lifted, and the handle trigger was pressed. The gas didn't cut off automatically on full, you had to listen to the (leaded) fuel running into the tank and stop when it sounded full before it overfilled. It's hard to describe the sound change, it started as a low gurgle and reached a higher and higher pitch.
After a while I got pretty good at stopping the flow at the right point, of course I slowly topped off the tank, as well. (Assuming I was filling it, of course.)
Oh yes, gas was around 27 cents a gallon then.
Most paid cash for their fill up, or handed over their credit card to be run in the store on the manual impression machine.
It wasn't transmitted electronically. We saved up the receipts till the next gas shipment arrived and we used them like money to pay for the gas. The receipts worked their way up the chain of command until the company received them and billed the customer. It sounds slow, but it was probably only a few days.
About once a day we'd open the fill pipe on one of the two underground tanks and drop a wooden dipstick down into it to see how low it was getting. The Humble, then Enco, then Exxon consignee delivered every week or so, but would come earlier if we were low, usually.
We never were really set up to wash windows, but we did check tires and fluid levels if asked.
The Gates Rubber Company, maker of auto hoses and fan belts, actually presented me with a Customer Service Award one time for offering to change a belt for one of their mystery motorists who stopped by.
I sort of cheated.
Being a ravenous reader, I always read their newsletter when we got it. I knew they had that program going on. While pumping gas I spied several spare fan belts in the back seat. That gave me a clue I should ask to check under their hood. Normally we rarely did that unless asked.
I confess.
They gave me a nice printed plaque with a couple of silver dollars, half dollars, and a specially minted Silver Gates Rubber coin. I also got mentioned in the next newsletter.
Fame and fortune.
It wasn't all glory, though. We weren't a very busy gas station. I did get a lot of reading done. I collected string from the Butter Krust Bread man. I made several balls of differently colored string, which I used for many years. I ate up much of the stock from our ice cream freezer, I doubt if a single ice cream sandwich ever reached a customer.
And Cokes, although back then it was Dr. Pepper.
No wonder I was chubby.
We sold the station in 1967. I was in my senior year of high school. There was a rival station across the intersection that undercut us on gas and sent their customers across to our side to get water and air. Exxon wouldn't give us any price break to compete. Mom and Dad decided to sell the store and move a short distance away and just have an auto repair shop.
It was a major shift.
I'd been pumping gas more or less since I was 11. Without pay, just for my room and board. It was a little less stress just helping out with the garage work.
I could concentrate more on other stuff.
Girls, school, cars, girls, books, girls.....like that.
But I never forgot that station. Sitting on the driveway after dark. Watching the occasional car. Nighthawks and bats swooping around catching bugs by the streetlights in the intersection, armadillos hunting bugs on the dividers.
Nice times.
