As we sat in a small deli at the airport, my mother walked up to the counter and scanned several items to see what she could afford. Even in 1986, the prices were outrageously high, and Mom ended up with a meal wrapped in plastic. The fare that evening was a turkey sandwich, bag of chips and a small soda.
“SEVEN DOLLARS,” Mom said as we checked out.
The rankled cashier handed my mother her change and sent us on our way. The three of us – Mom, my brother and I – found a table at the back of the restaurant and opened the plate before splitting up the food and taking a bite.
“Mom, these don’t taste right,” I said while eating one of the chips.
The sandwich wasn’t any better. Mom was angry, but we told her it was OK. After all, we were just a few hours away from landing in California and the beginning of a long vacation with her family.
As it turned out, my mother saved a couple of dollars so my brother and I could play a few video games in the airport’s arcade. Then 9 and 8, Dan and I were more than willing to eat a mediocre sandwich and stale chips if it meant playing Super Mario Bros. and preceded a trip to Cali.
For part of June and much of July, we traveled to Sacramento, Livermore, Concord and several other cities on the West Coast. My parents didn’t have much money, but they got us to California, and Mom’s family took care of the rest.
My father, meanwhile, stayed home. It was the middle of the craft show season, and somebody had to keep the business afloat. Though we missed him terribly, it was my brother and I’s opportunity to hang out with Mom and her family, who we rarely saw.
Nearly forty years later, that vacation remains one of the best I’ve been on. My grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins treated us like royalty. There were trips to the beach, days at the zoo, dinners at fancy restaurants, hours in the biggest arcades we’d ever seen, and much more.
On our first day in the Golden State, my Uncle Bob and Aunt Kathy walked us from the Ace Hardware they owned in Sacramento to a nearby store in the same shopping center, where we had our first shaved ice. That was one of many introductions that month, including the ocean, our first trip to a giant movie theatre and the circus.
Though those treks to California were rare (we typically went for a few weeks every three years), they epitomized Mom. She loved to take us on adventures, many of them small but mighty. She’d take a break in the summer and drive us into town for a hamburger and hours of video games. We spent a day at the Lake of the Ozark that included more video games and an Elvis impersonator show. On another day, she surprised us with a trip to a giant water slide.
When we couldn’t afford those adventures, she made home fun for us. For a few years, she taught us to cook during the summer. On those evenings, Dan and I would pick a meal, and we made it with her supervising. It’s how we learned to make tacos, nachos, hamburger casserole and spaghetti. You know, the healthy stuff.
Some of my fondest memories of growing up are watching “Dallas,” “Knots Landing,” “Fantasy Island,” “Miami Vice” and many other TV shows after preparing those meals. To this day, when I see reruns of “Dallas,” I hum the theme song. Many of you won’t be surprised to learn that I was a big J.R. fan.
I think of those moments on Mother’s Day. Mom has done a million things for us through the years. She’s been there for graduations, weddings, birthdays, baseball games and everything in between. She was the one who took me to the doctor at age 13 when I was really struggling with allergies and breathing (the doctor diagnosed me with severe asthma and said I might have died had we waited a few more days). She nurtured both of us through chickenpox, strep throat and numerous other illnesses.
But, as much as anything, she made sure we had fun. Even if it wasn’t easy over a terrible dinner in an airport. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.