Mom was always home when I was young.  She was always there for me as I grew older for advise or whatever I might need.  It was always a comfort to me.

When I was young and it would rain for a couple weeks, I might complain of nothing to do so she would always find something.  It might be to dump a bag of white beans in the middle of the living room floor, leaving the rest up to my imagination.  She might suggest I get out the phonograph and play records or even take a few days and paint my room.

Mom was always on my side, like when Dad would come home for lunch and occasionally decide I wasn't to leave the table until my already cold food was eaten.  After waiting about 1/2 hour for Dad to go back to work, Mom would tell me to run along and play.

Mom only got mad at me a couple times, one of which was when she found out I'd skipped my piano lesson for 2 weeks and spent the money.  She pushed me off the piano stool that day.

She would send me outside on a summer morning to play in a huge pile of dirt delivered by a dump truck.  I spent weeks playing in the dirt and at the end of every day she would laugh as she took off my dirty clothes and send me to my bath.

Mom had a way to handle problems that was beyond smart.  For example, at the age of eight years old, my friend and I discovered stealing.  We would go up town 2 or 3 times a week and steal toys.  After a couple weeks of this she somehow realized what we were doing and created a play.  She waited until I was sitting in the corner of the kitchen reading and she got on the phone to Nellie, our next door neighbor, and proceeded to talk about how she had heard there were a couple of young boys stealing things uptown and the manager of the stores knew about it and the police were going to get them.  She made it sound very convincing and I thought I was the luckiest kid to get this advance information.  We never stole toys again.

When on vacation she would make up stories along the way.  She would tell us some wild story for half an hour then finally start to grin and we knew we had been had.  Dad would just drive along and try not to laugh.

When I was sick with measles and chicken pox she was so full of sympathy and love and attention that it almost made you enjoy being sick.

Mom was always ready for adventure, like riding in one of my hot rods or going for a motorcycle ride at the age of 70.  Her and Marian Heilner drove from Baker to Salt Lake in a 1967 Jaguar XKE convertible and thought it was great.

Today is Mother's Day 1995.  As I write this there are too many memories and feelings to keep track of.

As it should be I have the best feelings and love for my mother.