susandennis: (meflowers)
[personal profile] susandennis
You guys - my LJ friends - are so great with support and encouragement with my joys and frustrations with good old Mom. I was thinking tonight that you have only heard about her as an old lady. She's a fine and fun old lady but before she hit her retirement stride, she was quite the ticket as well. I've been sitting here remembering Mom as a not so old lady... And there are a gazillion great Mom stories. I'll pepper future entries with them. But here's a starter set.

When I was in college, she was a major hit. I was with a bunch of friends collecting mail at the post office one day when I picked up an envelope from her that was odd even from the outside. I opened it up and there were two very squished and pretty ugly bean sprouts with a short note: "We found the greatest Chinese restaurant last night, thought of you and wanted to share."

Mom and Dad lived in mid-town Manhattan. During the Summer of 1969, the Mets were so hot that Mom had turned the whole rest of the family into baseball fans. We were gathered around the tv in the den one Sunday afternoon - and were joined by a couple of friends of mine from school. Mom left the room about the 4th inning and the next thing we knew she was standing at the door of the den with a tray of hot dogs wrapped in tin foil and was throwing them at us one at a time screaming 'HOT DOGS!! GET YOUR HOT HOT DOGS!!!"

She and a friend of hers went to the World Series that year and would call my dorm during the 7th inning stretch to give us the score. My dorm mates would kill each other for the chance to answer the phone because she was so hilarious with her reports. She even called when the games were in Baltimore and she was watching on TV.

But, the best one was the ticket stub. After the World Series was over, one day I got, in the mail, a ticket stub from Game 4. This stub was covered with autographs! Tommie Agee, Ron Swobota, Cleon Jones, Tom Seaver, Tug McGraw and some celebrity fans. One of those was Jackie O. I was thrilled but shocked. Mom is not one generally impressed with autographs nor the type to get them. Then I noticed that the O in Jackie O was really familiar and pretty soon I detected a bit of Mom's handwriting in all the names. We all got a huge laugh out of the stunt.

It gets better. She sent a similar stub to my brother and sister. Cut to 1999 and we're all gathered because Daddy died. We were swapping family stories with the preacher one afternoon and somehow the ticket stub came up and he asked about it. I told the story and when I got to the part about Mom's handwriting, my sister - the truly clueless - went ballistic. "You mean those autograhs weren't real?????!!!!!!"

Later entries will chronicle the 20 year run of practical jokes between Mom and my college roommate and well as Mom's war with the piliated woodpecker who spent two years eating her house...

I'm very lucky to have such a great Mom and to have my LJ friends.

p.s. Mariners 1, Montreal 0 in the 7th.

(no subject)

Date: 2003-06-12 09:47 pm (UTC)
jawnbc: (Default)
From: [personal profile] jawnbc
Your Mom sounds like a hoot. You're lucky to have her and she's lucky to have a kid who appreciates her and lets her be a human being (rather than solely a Mom).

(no subject)

Date: 2003-06-12 10:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] androkles.livejournal.com
Agreed, completely.

I'm amazed at her level of computer literacy. Mine wouldn't have known how to switch a computer on. She's obviously had some good advice.

(no subject)

Date: 2003-06-12 10:06 pm (UTC)
jawnbc: (Default)
From: [personal profile] jawnbc
yeah, mine's totally freaked by answering machines and voicemail. She loves her microwave though.

I wonder what new technologies on the horizon will have you and me panicked an intimidated?

no, thank YOU!!

Date: 2003-06-12 11:16 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lady-curmudgeon.livejournal.com
Reading your fun stories about your mom helps me remember fun stuff about my dad, which is very healing for me right now. And, though I don't need reminding, they also remind me that I, too, have a really cool mom. Cool moms ROCK!!!

Once I start feeling a bit less blue, I must start telling some of my cool parent stories in my journal!

((hugs))
Pam, who's thankful to have you for an LJ friend, too.

(no subject)

Date: 2003-06-13 01:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] melodysk.livejournal.com
I repeat what I said yesterday about your mum :))

She is the sort of mum that I always aim to be ;)

(no subject)

Date: 2003-06-13 08:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pheon.livejournal.com
Many thanks for the stories. You have now triggered me to think back on some of the good stories about my mother and father. Sometime soon I'll post them.

Thanks again for the lovely stories.

(no subject)

Date: 2003-06-13 11:06 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] pinkrose70.livejournal.com
Reading your entries, book reviews and your family photo gallery, but especially reading about your Mom and that lovely retirement villa was a big reason to have me make your journal and site one of the first ones I looked at daily. (still is) I'm so busy reading yours that I rarely enter a thing on mine.
I think that picture of your parents at the Anniversary Party is really a gem. Your Mom looks so pretty in red.

(no subject)

Date: 2012-08-07 11:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] otherdeb.livejournal.com
Thank you so much for pointing me to this!

My mom was the family baseball fan, although she didn't watch baseball from the time the Dodgers left Brooklyn until the 1986 playoffs (she got hooked back in during that monumental game against Houston).

Oddly,during 1969, my dad was working Security at Shea Stadium, so we had tickets for all the home games, including the Series!..That's when I got hooked into baseball.

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susandennis: (Default)
Susan Dennis

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