Tales of My Mother #15

talesofmymother02

Folks are writing me to note it's Mother's Day and to ask if that makes me miss my mother who left at least this planet last October. No more than yesterday did or tomorrow will. We were never big on holidays in our family. We kinda went through life as if every day was a holiday. I was just as likely to give my mother a gift on any day as I was on Mother's Day. I was less likely to take her out to dinner on Mother's Day because she hated going to restaurants when they were crowded.

I felt so bad for her the last decade or so as she suffered with endless hospitalizations and diminishing vision that I have trouble missing her from that period. And it was during that period that I got through missing the woman she was before that. I do have one lingering void. Most days between 5 PM and 6 PM, I get that feeling that there was something I was supposed to do and I've forgotten to do it. Then I realize: If I didn't see her that day, I always phoned her between 5 and 6. That's what I keep forgetting to do, now that I can't.

I learned a lot about my mother while cleaning out her house before I sold it. I also learned a few things about me. One of the things she had stashed away in a drawer was a Woody Woodpecker comic book story I wrote and drew with crayola at age 7 — or, as we might put it, 12 years before I was writing the real Woody Woodpecker comic book. I also found my first typewriter — the one she got for me with many books of Blue Chip Stamps. I was about 15 when we picked it up and I pounded away on it until I was about 22. It was a manual with keys so unresponsive that I couldn't touch-type on it. I had to type with my index fingers and space with my thumbs. The ribbon on it still seems to be good but my index fingers aren't.

Neither of my parents ever understood my career but they trusted that I did. That was one of the best things they did for me. Another was that they pretty much let me find my own way in the world. I never got a lecture about "the birds and the bees" — or much of anything else for that matter. My father was too inhibited (I guess you'd say) to deliver a father-son lesson about sex so one day, long after another male parent might have seen his duty and done it, my mother sat me down. She said, "Dad and I were talking about whether you two need to have a discussion about sex and things like that."

I said, "I think I've figured it all out."

She said, "We figured you would." Then she added, "Dad will be very happy when I tell him he doesn't have to do it."

She was a great organizer. Several years there, we volunteered our home as a polling place and my mother supervised the voting and, before voting machines came in, the actual counting-by-hand of the ballots. She also ran programs for my school and did volunteer work for charities, and some election years she'd get involved at the local Democratic Headquarters. But her greatest bit of organizing may have been her management of The Tuna Fish.

We had a neighbor who had a son who worked down in San Pedro for a company that processed tuna and other fish, canning it for restaurant sales. They didn't output small cans of the stuff. They were all huge — about a foot in diameter, six to eight inches high…and unlabelled. That is, there'd be no label on the can.  Apparently, at some point on the assembly line, if a can lost its label, anyone who worked there could just take it home…and the son knew which ones were tuna and which weren't.  Whenever he went to visit his mother, he'd bring her one even though she didn't like tuna. Is that a son or not?  "Here, Mom…here's another ton of that stuff you won't eat!"

So she'd give it to us and my mother would direct the distribution of its contents to seven or eight neighbors. I mean, we liked tuna but you can only have it so often.  And there was no point freezing it since more was always on the way.

Artists' Re-creation
Artist's Re-creation

My mother would pick a date a few weeks in the future…say, August 3rd. She would then phone each of these selected neighbors and inform them that August 3 would be a Tuna Day; that on that day, Mark would be bringing them a free supply of tuna so don't, for example, serve your family a tuna-noodle casserole the night before. Everyone gratefully marked Tuna Day on their calendars.

Come Tuna Day, it would be my job to open the can. This was not easy as they were too big to fit in my mother's electric can opener so I had to use the manual kind. It took quite some time. Once I finally got the lid off, my mother would spoon tuna into eight or nine plastic containers, including a big one for us, and store them in our refrigerator, which she'd already rearranged so there'd be ample space. Then she would phone each neighbor to ask, "Are you ready for tuna?" This was to prevent me from carrying a container to a house down the block, finding no one home and then having to carry it back. We decided that between the hot sun and the volume of stray cats around, it would not be a good idea for me to leave it on the porch.

If the tuna recipients were there and primed to receive tuna, she'd dispatch me on my appointed rounds…and the neighbors would be very happy. A few insisted on tipping me a buck or two, then they'd take it in and commence making tuna sandwiches, tuna salads, tuna croquettes, tuna casseroles and such. One lady told us she made tuna chow mein…to which I say, "Hey, why not?"

Then one memorable Tuna Day, I got the lid off and the contents looked odd. I thought at first we'd gotten a bad batch and I asked my mother to inspect it. She did, and it took her a minute or two to come to the shocking realization…

It wasn't tuna. It was salmon.

She laughed and I laughed and she began calling the neighbors and telling them, "Mark will be right over but it's not tuna this time. It's salmon." They were all fine with that and they proceeded to make salmon sandwiches, salmon salads, salmon croquettes, salmon casseroles…and that one woman made salmon chow mein, to which I again say, "Hey, why not?"

The following Tuna Day, I opened the can muttering, "I wonder what it'll be this time? Tuna? Salmon? Anchovies? Tennis balls?" I think I'd have preferred tennis balls to anchovies. It turned out to be tuna and when my mother called Mrs. Hollingsworth down the street to tell her tuna was on its way, Mrs. Hollingsworth said, "Oh…don't you have any salmon?"