One of the major areas of pride for me as an adult, but one of the major areas of embarrassment for me as a child, was the fact that my Mom was always so ahead of her time.
In her philosophies or her fashion, Mom was just not like the other moms who I yearned for her to emulate. Mom was ever her own person who did not suffer fools. Consequently she lived the life of a contented loner.
The source of much of her knowledge was the Carnegie Library in Portland. How much did I hate those trips to the library! First of all, we got there like we got everywhere: on foot.
This was not that long of a walk but I maintain that all children are naturally lazy and I sure was.
Once we got there, it never failed that I would have to use “the facilities.” At that time, librarians were not the warm and fuzzy creatures that I now encounter at our library in Vancouver. No indeed.
These were no-nonsense, stern women. It took tons of courage and desperation to even get the nerve to ask for the key. Once I’d asked, I’d be given the once over. The scrutiny seemed to be something that was learned along with the Dewey Decimal System at librarian school.
Mom ignored all of this because she was in heaven. Every magazine and a good supply of books were available, not to mention, I’m sure, the delicious quiet.
Yes, believe it or not, libraries were once quiet.
Styles that Mom wanted me to adopt were no doubt on the pages of Vogue. There was one problem. No one in the neighborhood, and I bet darn few in our city, read Vogue. I’ll never forget Mom purchasing textured stockings about four years before they accepted as fashionable in Portland. Mom would wear these stockings and I would beg her not to do so. Mom would reply that this is what they were wearing in New York.
In frustration, I’d have to quit the arguing. Mom was her own person and too bad if the “yahoos” in Portland didn’t know style.
Then there was the stand-up collar. Mom bought me a blue corduroy coat with a stand-up collar and a blue-checkered blouse with a stand-up collar. I had gotten used to being ahead of the curve by this time, so if no one else was sporting these collars, too bad. I knew that I’d have no clothes at all if I objected to Mom’s interpretation of fashion.
The positive worst though was Mom’s purple velvet shirt, which she wore with a Native American silver belt with turquoise beads on it. Once, when Mom was upset with dad, she put on this outfit, with pants of some sort, and announced that she and I were going to take our dinner at the Silk Hat restaurant by ourselves. Chinese food was one of the culinary loves of my childhood. Deep embarrassment though prevented me from touching a morsel of the dinner that Mom had treated me to that evening. If Mom objected to my sudden loss of appetite, she didn’t say anything. She was lost in thought that night, perhaps wondering how to make it up with my Dad.
Many years before anyone talked about the environment, Mom took to boycotting detergents. We washed our clothes in Ivory washing soap. Mom would not allowed anything in the house that contained the hated detergents. When I asked why we couldn’t use Tide or some other brand the other mothers bought, Mom told me that they made bubbles that wound up in the rivers and streams and killed the fish. This was in 1958. Mom was the neighborhood’s answer to Rachael Carson.
But for me as a young child, it only added up to one thing: we were different, and different is something that no child seems to tolerate.
Years before anyone had much of a concern, indeed before the term “homeless” had even been coined, Mom’s heart went out to these people. When it would snow in Portland, which was never enough for me as a child, Mom would say, “Yes, it’s pretty, but what are people doing who have no place to get warm?” That always put a sort-of-damper on my snow frolicking.
Mom would not tolerate making judgements against others. She was ever the liberal, explaining away most ills of society, or what others considered ills of society, as happening because the people who commit the behaviors were “unhappy” or “did not have someone to help them.” I listened to Mom’s explanations and accepted them. They became my explanations too.
It did not take me many years though to run into people who did not see the world as Mom did.
Of course now, as a mature adult, I recall my individualistic Mom with immense pride. I feel a bit guilty about giving her such a bad time when I was little. But I know that if I was lucky enough to have Mom with me now, she’d just laugh at my guilty pride and say, “All children are embarrassed by their parents, it’s natural.”
And Mom, it’s natural for me now to say thanks.
Read more stories in the “Memories of Mom” series here.
