My Mother

My mother was born to two very nice people, my grandparents. My mother was something else. I can remember back when we lived in Indiana....I wanted to join the Cub Scouts. They seemed to have several boys wanting to join at the same time but needed a den mother...guess who came to the rescue? Yes. She was only a den mother one year, because the next year we moved to North Carolina. But I still remember my den...den 4......I don't recall the troop numbers.....

I also remember back when we lived in Indiana....it was a nice day for kite flying..so the four of us (my sisters and my brother) Talked mother to taking us to the drug store across from the school and buying all of us kites. We each got a kite....and me, being in a hurry and NOT listening..put my kite together and out into the field behind our house I went running to fly my kite.....NO TAIL..so guess what? It crashed and the paper was torn...I ran home crying "MOMMIE my kite broke"..I need a new one.....she said no BUT that we could fix the old one......still sniffing and tears running down my face....my mother got a plastic bag that dry cleaning comes in and made me a kite out of that....WITH A TAIL this time....That was the best kite I ever had....it would fly higher that any other kite I had then or later. In fact it was so good I would let all of the string out and still it flew like a bird.....a couple of days later she got me more string..just to see what would happen....that kite would fly with 2 complete rolls of string let all the way out...that kite was so far up in the sky..if one didn't know better..they would think I was just holding a piece of string. You couldn't even see the kite at all. Mom would yell at me to start bringing in my kite about 30 minutes before time to eat so I had time to retrieve it before we ate. My mother was a treasure....

When we moved to NC she still did things for me....besides just the "mother duties" Taking me places when I needed a ride...and when I had my paper route...on really rainy days sometimes she would drive me in the car so I wouldn't get so wet delivering my papers.....

When it came time to get my drivers permit, Mom took me out in the car and let me drive some..after I got my permit, she took me out in the "kids car" a 1959 English Ford that my father purchased for us to learn to drive on and use until we bought our own cars. That car was a straight drive and mother patiently taught me how to "hold the car" with the clutch...I choked it down through several "lights" before I made it through...once I did...that was it....I drove that little car until I wore it out....it is resting off highway 24/27 at the old shell service station...rolled down the bank and covered up. I thought several times about trying to retrieve that car and fix it up.....My mother...what a treasure....(to be continued)