GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #676: MOM

Mom and me at Cantigny, 1979

 

Yesterday was Mother's Day, and it occurred to me that I rarely talk about Mom during these GF columns. Gramps is usually the big star, so I thought what the hell?

Mom and I had a strained relationship near the end of her life. I was enraged by her choosing alcohol over just about everything in her life, completely blind to the same thing in myself. So we'll skip that part of the experience and stick with what I remember from when I was a kid.

Sometimes I wonder where I got the writing bug from. Reading? That's easy. Mom and Dad were both big time readers. My first word was "book." But writing? I think I might have gotten it from her. I don't know where she got it from. Maybe Gramps? He had the observation skills of an author, but as far as I know he never wrote a word he didn't have to.

Here is some of the first page of her account of my birth. I found it recently going through a lot of stuff. I knew about the typed up version, which I also recently found, but there is a notebook full of her experience with baby me. She also wrote on other subjects, but I don't think I've ever found a fiction piece by her. She spoke a few languages. French pretty well. Some German, too. And she loved to play the piano. She tried to teach me how to play when I was a kid, but it never took.

Mom's portrait of Dad from their prom night.

Her other great skill was illustration. She would spend hours just drawing, usually with a charcoal pen on heavy stock paper. She never did anything with it. I think it was just something she did just to make herself happy.

She was crazy about British royalty. I think she would have really enjoyed King Charles III's coronation, although I would have made fun of her for it. She was obsessed with Lady Di. Holy shit, I can't tell you how bad a day it was for her when Lady Di, uh, well, passed. She also liked drawing a lot of high class shit like you might read about in a Jane Austen novel.

And she looooooooooooooooooooved the Beatles. Contrary to popular belief, I am not named John for John Lennon. It's for Gramps. But my middle name *is* Paul because Paul McCartney was her favorite Beatle.

It could be worse. I have a cousin named Erik for Estrada. One of my brothers has Cornelius for a middle name because of the Planet of the Apes movies.

Anyway, Mom was a multitalented woman who got the short end of the stick when it came to life. But I'm not going to think about that kind of shit today. Happy belated Mother's Day.

Mom and me today

Eh, let's not end on a bummer of a picture. Here she is in 1975.