by Terry McPherson on January 03, 2022

I would guess you had to say Mom was a typical 40’s-50’s mom that stayed at home and took kids everywhere she went. We went shopping and to visit when there were times she needed to be on the go. She had her rules and they were pretty simple. Eat what was on your plate, don’t be leaving food. There were all those starving children somewhere and if I did not clean my plate it was a sin. Sometimes she would ask what we wanted for breakfast or lunch, but dinner, was never a choice. When I asked what was for dinner, sometimes she would say “1000 things” and I knew it was beans again. We had our chores and were expected to keep rooms semi-clean and dirty clothes downstairs. She did the laundry though, not us. We did have to do the dishes every night. As soon as we were up from the table it was to the sink and wash n dry and put away all dishes. We always thought that since she had put every dish on the table on the floor for the Yorkies to cleanup it was a good idea. Of course they looked clean by then but we were glad to wash them. In later years when she had a dish washer, she still did dishes by hand. Mom was not really the disciplinary type, most times it was wait till your father gets home. But she could be upset with you too. Usually it was by grabbing or pulling your hair a bit. From my understanding when Tommy was young and still at home, she would had a stick to spank him. But one day he broke the stick and said you won’t use that again. So when dad got home he made her a paddle board with a wrist strap so you could not take it away from her. I don’t really remember her using it that much. While in Tomales it hung on the light fixture between Kathy’s and my bedroom. When dad was upset, he would say go get the board. Of course we were not too fast in retrieving it and usually hoped he would forget. He would have to ask “have you got it yet”, before we would actually bring it down stairs to him. But mom would sometimes not like something you said or did, she would toss something at you. Kathy made her mad one day and mom threw a small lead weight from her scales she was using and it went thru the screen on the screen door. Then she says now look what you made me do. I guess the worst for me was one day I was not doing what she wanted or something and she went to reach for my head to pull my hair, but I ducked away. She said to come over here but I knew she would pull my hair if I did, so I just stayed out of reach and then went out the gate and down driveway to a small creek and brush. She yelled down at at me, ” just wait till your father gets home.” Well I waited and thought dad would come down and tell me to come up to the house. Well I heard his car come home and he did not come out. I stayed in creek a while and then realized it was getting past dinner time. So sheepishly, I go back up to the house because I was getting hungry and it was getting dark. I got up to the house and dinner was over, which meant I was not getting any. You either were there for dinner on time or not. When I came into the house dad was messing with a deepsea fishing pole. He tells me to sit down. He tells me he understands I was not being very good to mom and not obeying. He said he had bought me a new fishing rod that day in PX and that he was still giong to give it to me but I was to remember every time I used it how I mistreated mom and should not do that again. So it was one of those things sometimes it was a good thing and sometimes it was not. But I did remember being mean to mom everytime I used it. It reminds me too of another time i got in trouble and was kinda rewarded!! When Kathy had her accident and Candy was in hospital for 3 months afterwards, mom and dad went to visit her every night. We had a small gas station across street from house that we ran and I saw dads car go up driveway and then leave with mom to go visit Candy. I got into the habit of going up to the house and getting keys to moms Hillman, going for a little drive down highway 1 to practice driving. I was 15 and of course, no learners permit or anything. Well, when I returned to the gas station one evening, there was mom and dad sitting in his little Sprite. They had forgotten something they were going to take to Candy. Dad asked where I had been. I told him I took a guy down the road with gas for his car. He looks in the Hillman and sees no gas can and says what did you use to carry gas. I was busted…. So he said to take car up to house and park it and bring back the keys which I did. He did not raise his voice or anything. He just got back into the Sprite and headed off. In the morning I made sure I was not up before he headed to work. I went to school and as was my habit came home for lunch. Dad was there at the table, he was never home for lunch. He took me up to the bank and had me take $200 out of my savings and give to him. I figured he just charged me $200 for my driving lesson. I did not say a word or ask why. After school I was working the gas station and feeling pretty low having lost 1/3 of my savings. I was dreading dad getting home too, I was sure I had not heard the last of it. Well about time for dad to get home a MGTD drives into the gas station to the pumps and I go out to see if I can help them. Dad gets out fo the MGTD and says he went half with me and bought the MGTD for me but I was not to drive it anywhere but up and down driveway to the gas station till I got my license. So needless to say, I spent a lot of time going back up to the house for something and back down to station driving the MGTD. So another lesson learned….

But back to Mom, if it was not for her, I would have missed almost every date I had. We always had work around the house. We put foundation under 100 year old house, we poured drive ways and cut wood and worked on cars or yard and I would tell dad I had a date but then he was always needing help with something and I would not walk off the job, but mom would finally come out and tell dad to quit for the night and let me get ready for my date. Mom saved me many times and I was always thankful, but almost always late for anything i was going to do.

She was great and would take me driving once I got my learners permit driving in my MGTD. It was funny too that she was always cooking or baking. But unfortunately you never knew if it was something for us, for for friend or the dogs!! Mom would not waste anything. One night my buddy Glenn and I came in late from our 4-H meeting and everyone was in bed. But we were hungry and saw a pot of rice in tomato sauce and even looked looked like some hamburger in it. So we each got a bowl and had some. Then Glenn went home and I went to bed. In the morning, mom asked who had been in her rice? I told Glenn and I tried some and it was good. She says well I hope you enjoyed it…. It was the rice that had weevils in it, hamburger that had spoiled and she only added to tomato sauce so it would be flavor able enough for the dogs to eat it. Glenn never ate anything at our house again.

One of the funniest things about mom was that she would NEVER lie to you… But if you headed off down the wrong road she might not correct you and let you think what you were thinking, no matter how wrong it was. One night when we were having some rabbit for dinner, I raised rabbits as my 4-H project, Tommy and Francis show up unexpected for dinner. It is dinner time and we all knew Francis had many times said she was not eating the rabbits. So mom is frying rabbit and Francis looks on and says “Oh mom that looks so good, I love chicken.” Mom says good you love this… We all sit down to eat and we are about done eating and dad just can not hold back anymore, so he asks Francis to give him one of the wings off the plate of chicken. After a few seconds of looking Francis makes the discovery that there are no wings and it is not chicken. We are all laughing and she is upset… She says ” I was eating rabbit, oh no, and it was so good.” Like many things they says it tastes just like chicken!!!

Another time in the morning during the summer, us kids home and one of dads friends he used to work with shows up and brings his own bottle of Jack Daniels which is about 1/3 gone already. Mom sits him down and tells him dad wont be home till dinner time but he says OK he will just sit and visit. So then he asks for a glass and wanted to fill it with his JD. Mom got a glass and took his bottle of JD and poured him a glass, then set the JD bottle over by sink. So every time he wanted another drink she would fix it. But it was about 1/3 JD and 2/3 tea. She had him just about sober by time he was ready to leave and he never figured it out. She had even been putting tea in the JD bottle so when he grabbed it to take with him, there was hardly any real JD left.

It was funny too when I was having a BBQ and mom and dad came across street to join us, I was worried because I had both chicken and pork ribs, and dad usually was not eating pork because of his religion. I was in the kitchen when mom comes in to get dad some more meat on his plate and she asks me, isn’t that pork? I said yes… She says it is ok he likes it, he does not need to know.

Mom was a friend to everyone. She would help anyone with whatever they needed. Sometimes they might not know she was helping but that was hoow it was. She believed anything someone would tell her. When we had Casey and Justin wiving with us, she would get made at Casey for saying bad words. He would say well Justin says them too. She said she was sure Justin said no such things. So Casey managed to get his tape recorder going and then made Justin mad so he would curse at him. But it was funny when Casey showed it to Mom to prove it, she was mad at Casey for being mean to Justin…. She had her own sense of right and wrong.

She was a great mom and I miss her.