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LARP: The month of
May celebrates Mother’s Day.
Do you have a special story about your mom?
(from 2009)
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Geno Michellini
(former KLOS personality): When I was at KOME-San
Jose about 1979, my mom came out to visit me from
Colorado. I was living in Santa Cruz at the time. I
remember that my old pal Greg Kihn was playing at a
club in Santa Cruz and we went to the show. She had
never been to a rock concert before, but she was my
mom and I thought, she might as well see the 'real
me.'
Now you have to
remember, those who can, what the times were like
then. Here I am, in my bell bottoms and long hair
with my mom, a sixty something year old lady at a
concert. Plus, it was Santa Cruz [lots of, let’s
say, natural ‘products’ around] with a lot of ‘smiling faces’
and happy people. So here I am with my mom and
friends rocking out.
She’s in her
mom clothes and drinking her Seven and Seven
standing there down front boppin’ along. Certain
herbs being passed back and forth, and yes, I
inhaled. She didn’t seem to mind so I thought
everything was ‘cool’ when this young lady came up
and offered one to her. Mom smiled and declined and
then looked at me and giggled. The girl looked at me
then at my mom and said, ‘Is this your mom?’ I
responded positively. She went on, ‘I just think
this is so cool that you can go rocking with your
mom. She is so adorable. And she lets you smoke dope
too! Wow!’ To which my mom interjects, ‘I do not!' |
I was a bit confused as
I’d just passed one on a minute before that. She looked at
her and declared, ‘I’ve NEVER seen my son smoke that reefer
stuff.’ Then she giggled again and said, ‘Every time he
puts one to his lips I close my eyes. Like I said I’ve never
seen him do it.’ The girl hugged my mom, got a tear in her
eye, and said something about my being the luckiest guy in
the world. It was a side of my mom I didn't know existed.
The kicker to the
story was that about a week after my mom flew back to
Colorado I was looking for a Greg Kihn album to listen to
and couldn’t find ‘any.’ By chance I called my mom up and
asked her if she knew anything about it. Her response, ‘Yes,
I may have packed a couple of your Greg Kihn albums in my
suitcase. Every time I listen to one darlin’ I think of
you.’ And every time I hear Greg Kihn I remember that
night.
A couple of my mom's
favorite sayings, she may have originated them, ‘A cheap
thrill is STILL a thrill’ and ‘If you didn’t make a mess,
you didn’t have a good time.’
The enclosed picture
was taken on the ‘KOME PARTY KRUISE ON THE BAY-'79,’ that
same trip. We did a lot of ‘wild and crazy’ promotions back
then. I took mom along on all of them. She ‘really’ got to
know her son. I wasn’t sure how she’d respond, but I thought
it was better to see what was going on in my life than to
try and be something I wasn’t. As luck turned out, ‘There’s
a reason I am the way I am.’ It was standing next to me in
the picture. I lost her three and a half years ago. Her name
was LaVerne and I thank her for what she gave me. Because of
her spunk and joy in living I have had a great life. I love
you mom.
p.s. Note the shirt and
pants. Back then ‘it worked.’
Leslie Marshall: I
grew up pretty poor. My dad was a struggling jazz musician
and my mom was a part-time nurse so she could be home with
us when my brothers and I were in school.
When I was 15, I was dating a guy
a year older than me, a junior in my high school and he
asked me to go to the junior/senior prom. I didn’t have any
prom dresses. We really couldn’t afford one, especially the
one I fell in love with in the store window at the mall.
One day I came home from school
and my mom had a box for me. In it was the white prom dress
I had loved in the window at the mall. When I asked how she
got it for me, she told me she had run across some good
luck. I found out later in life that my mother actually sold
her own clothes to a consignment shop and some jewelry she
had to buy me that dress. I guess you could say I know my
mom would give me the shirt off her back because she has.
She’s incredible.
Bob Morgan:
My mom, how could there be
a less selfish person born on this planet? I was an only
child and as far back as I can remember, both my parents
doted on me all the time. They spoiled me rotten and I was
the apple of their eyes.
My mom was an Oklahoma
native. Born in Connerville, raised in Ada, she was by
nature a giving woman all her life. But it hit me the
hardest just moments before she passed away. Every time I
would visit her when she lived on her own after dad died,
her first words to me were always, ‘can I get you something,
do you need anything?’
When she got to the point
where she could no longer live alone, I moved her in with me
and my daughter. Even then, the first thing she'd say when
she woke up in the mornings was, ‘can I get you and Becki
something? You want some coffee and toast?’
Her little lungs failed
for the last time a week before her 90th birthday in
1998. In the emergency room the doctor told me they could
incibate her but she would be on a breathing machine for
whatever time she had left and I had to make a decision. The
most difficult a son had to make in his life. The doctor
removed the breathing machine and told me it would just be a
matter of minutes. I stayed by her bed and an hour and a
half later, she was still fighting. The doctor could not
imagine why. My pastors were with me and one of them, a
wonderful 70 year old man told me ‘she won't go until you
tell her it’s okay to leave.’
I leaned over and
whispered in her ear, ‘I'll be fine, Pastor Sherm is here
with me. Becki and I will be okay. You go on and I’ll meet
you later.’
She grinned and moments
later took her last breath. I’m not the brightest bulb on
the marquee, but I know there's a lot more in this world
than we know about. But one thing I do know is that moms are
special and you only get one shot. My one shot was Louise
Oliver (Rogers) Morgan. It’s only my humble opinion, but she
was my Superstar!
Chuck Blore:
It happened when I was about
ten years old or whatever age it is when your mother first
asks, “Chuckie. What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“What? Mom, I’m ten years old.” I had
never given the slightest thought to what I wanted to be,
that is if you don’t count wanting to be a cowboy and/or
Tarzan.
At ten years old you
don’t really have much of a past but my future was about to
be sealed. I swear to God that moment was traumatic and my
memory of it, indelible. I was sweeping leaves off the
porch of our house in East Los Angeles. The radio was on
and old-time-deejay Al Jarvis was on it. Al sounded
like he was having a pretty nice time and suddenly I knew
what I wanted to do when I grew up. So, I looked at my
mother with my best ‘I’m very serious’ expression, I pushed
my ten year old voice down as far as it would go and said,
“I want to talk on the radio.”
My Mother was a kind and gentle lady
and I’m certain what she did then was meant to protect her
little boy from being cruelly buffeted about by an unkind
society. She took both my hands into hers and in the
gentlest possible voice said, “Chuckie. People like us
don’t do that.”
Whoa! Something
snapped inside my young little soul and I swore to myself,
“I am not people like us. I am me! And me is gonna talk on
the radio!” From that moment on, talking on the radio was
everything life was about.
See? I owe everything
to my mom.
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Don Elliot:
It is fitting timing that my mom's influence on
me would arise from my memories today, just after
my recent surgery at Cedars-Sinai and only hours
before Mother’s Day. It will be a true Thanksgiving
Day for ME on Sunday, first, the appreciation for my
great healthcare, and secondly, that my mother is
alive, well, comfortable and quite healthy at 90.
She takes only one pill a day – a blood pressure
med! Now that’s what I call great.
A wonderful
early memory of her, and the influence she had on
formation of my career choice, happened at age 10 on
my first trip to The Big Apple. She had a family
friend named Rudy Eisell, a VP at Radio City Music
Hall. After a lunch at Sardi’s, he took me on a trip
to the Foley stages during the radio broadcasts and
showed me how the sound effects were made live
during the shows. |
The most impressive was
a wooden rack of clothespins lined up on swiveling wires
that could be lifted and lowered on any surface and
any angle. One could simulate sounds of the feet of marching
men and control the speed and intensity right there in the
Foley pit during the show.
He then followed that
up with a Spike Jones concert (famous for his live sounds
blending of anything from trash barrels to cement
mixers), and damn, I’ve been hooked for LIFE! If it’s sound
or music, it’s my life.
Remember the old
expression – “How about THAT... ya learn something’ new
every day?”
Whenever I would “learn
something new,” my mother would then footnote my comment
with, “No, you just didn’t know it before.”
Here she is, shown
teaching a spinning wheel technique to her students at the
Kansas City Weavers Guild, where she is a member to this
day. Keep on keepin’ on, mom, and Happy Mother’s Day from
your little radio wire head brat!
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Wink Martindale:
Perhaps like many of your readers, my story will ring a
bell. I grew up in a small house in Jackson, Tennessee. No
modern-day shower, just a tub for which hot water had to be
heated on the wood stove. One bathroom for six people. We
didn't have a lot of the material things we take for granted
today.
As Mother’s Day
approached last week, I was re-reading a letter from my late
mom, dated May 12, 1979 – a letter in which she reminded me,
“We may not have enjoyed some of the things others had, but
your dad and I always saw to it there were good meals on the
table, and you never went naked!”
How we turn out as
adults, in my view, is reflected by how we were raised as
children. In our God-fearing home, the appreciation of
my mom can be traced to one seminal moment. It was a fall
evening. I was seven or eight years old, and had flat-out
lied to her about having taken some grapes from our
neighborhood grocery store without paying for them. She took
me out to the back yard, stripped a “switch” from our
monumental Weeping Willow tree and proceeded to give me the
whipping of my young life. I never forgot that night. I
never took what didn’t belong to me again. And the event
cemented a loving relationship with mom that I have carried
with me for life. |
Sad to say, but true,
in today’s world, a child might take his/her mom to court
for teaching such a lesson.
How many can relate to
these words as you remember YOUR Mom and perhaps make you
silently weep in sorry or joy?This is titled “No Charge.”
My sister’s little boy came into the
kitchen one evenin’ while she was fixin’ supper. And he
handed her a little piece of paper he’d been writin’ on. And
after wipin’ her hands on her apron, she took it in her
hands and read it. This is what it said.
For mowin’ the yard, 5 dollars. For
makin’ up my own bed this week, 1 dollar. For goin’ to the
store, 50 cents. And playin’ with little brother while you
went shoppin’, 25 cents. Takin’ out the trash, 1 dollar. And
for getting’ a good report card, 5 dollars. And for rakin’
the yard, 2 dollars. Total owed, $14.75.
Well, she looked at him standin' there
... and a thousand memories flashed through her mind. So she
picked up the pen, turned the paper over, and this is what
she wrote.
For the 9 months I carried you growin’
inside me, no charge. For the nights I sat up with you,
doctored and prayed for you, no charge. For the time and the
tears and the cost through the years, there is no charge.
For advice and the knowledge and the cost of your cottage,
no charge. For the toys, food and clothes, and for wipin’
your nose, there’s no charge son. And when you add it all
up, the full cost of my love, is … No Charge.
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