Mommy

Mommy loved coffee. She had to. That's what she did with Mrs. Greenwood. She was always going to have coffee with Doris. We didn't even question it. I always wondered how someone could drink that much coffee, but then I use to drink what was left in the bottom of the coffee cups after bridge club and it was just as good as any melted coffee ice cream I had ever had. And, another thing, my mother didn't really have anything else to do. She was kind of trapped in the neighborhood unless Mrs. Greenwood decided to drive us to Churchill Park to swim. That's a whole other story!
She did have a pretty good theory about putting out a mop bucket at the end of the day and propping the mop up in the bucket just before daddy came home. I never questioned the wisdom of this strategy as it seemed to work pretty well and the side benefit for us....lots of freedom.
I can never remember cleaning the house....nor did I ever see my mother clean the house. We didn't even have to make our beds. When I finally went to college and kids were doing laundry and dusting and all that stuff, I wondered when that happened at our house. Maybe it never did, but none of us seemed to mind.
My mother didn't have a car so she was stuck in the neighborhood--a neighborhood that consisted of two streets and Colby Circle...so go figure! It was a pretty damn small world. Not for me though! I spent hours in the nearby fields, down at Starr Pond skating and building camp fires, catching pollywogs, building forts, playing with pretend guns (we use to do that an no one freaked out). I would leave early in the morning and come home for a dry bologna sandwich with lots of frenches mustard (my mother didn't really cook either and we made our own breakfasts and lunches). Thank God for that because what she served for dinner was another adventure in avoidance.
For the first six grades of my school life I passed by Briarwood Market on the way to Lizzie Green School and lived off Twinkies and Licorice Honey Luden cough drops. They served me well, but I don't think Dr. L was too thrilled with the holes in my teeth. Although, I do believe he drilled holes in perfectly good teeth just to torture me and make a little more cash each week. Afterall, how much could those 2000 plastic charms in a box really cost him?
Someone once asked me how my mother got to the grocery store if we didn't have a second car. She did go to the Grand Uniion when daddy came home and she always took me. I loved the smell of fresh ground coffee and took time to run my hands through the grounds that had escaped the bags ladies took home. We never bought that though. My mother has always been an instant coffee drinker. I know that probably comes as a surprise! She was also partial to canned whole tomatores, raw carrots, and al dente, and I mean, al dente.....that would be heated to luke warm spaghetti. That was her number one favorite recipe. She would make this on a pretty regular basis, probably to keep up with the fantastic kitchen skills of Mrs. Greenwood. Well, it didn't really work that well. In case you want to try it for yourselves....heat up a big can of whole tomatoes to warm, add chopped carrots, and just a hint of oregano....serve over the before mentioned al dente spaghetti. She loved to tell us that spaghetti without the sauce wasn't healthy.
We survived because of Briarwood Market, school lunches, my dad's barbeques....and an occasionally begging at Mrs Sole's house.