Taming of the Dude: One man's Journey with Jesus

Chapter 6- Who is your mommy

Chapter 6- Who is your mommy?

Chaucer in the twelfth century called, idle hands the devil's tools. Or idle hands are the devil's playthings

My mom must have wondered who I took after because I was a handful growing up. It is not that I tried to get into trouble but you know the old saying, "Idle hands are the devil's playthings." I had a lot of idle time, especially during the preschool years. My sister and brother would be off to school and I would be left home to entertain myself. I am not saying that things improved when my brother returned from school, but at least he could share the blame (or I could pretend it was all his fault and he could take all the blame. ) This particular morning, my mom was visiting with a friend in the kitchen. They were yapping on about one thing or another while I was in the next room. Now, I cannot be sure of everything, but I do remember that this morning I had a box of matches. I cannot say if my mom gave them to me and told me to go play, or I took them because I saw a really cool show where some guy took a box of matches and was able to launch them into a flame. It looked pretty cool to me. One second the match is unlit, then it is flicked along the side of the box, shot into the air, and as it gracefully leaves the box, it lights. While it travels through the air, it is a lovely flame spinning around and around. If I were to guess, I think my mom did not give me the box of matches, but I saw the show and I wanted to repeat the awesomeness. I am not saying the first scenario is not true, but the second seems more plausible. While my mom was comparing notes on the latest soap opera episode, I was in the living room, sitting on the couch, flicking matches. I must have shot off about 20 matches into the air when I saw some smoke. Now in my defense, as a preschooler, I might have seen this really cool tv episode, but did not understand the finer details like the actor was outside, the actor intended to burn down the house, or the actor quickly distinguished the flame after it landed. I, on the other hand, would watch my matches beautifully ignite in the air and disappear into the couch that was in our living room. I figure that once it was gone, it was gone. No more worries. This, of course, was not the case. Instead, once it was gone, it remained lit and started the couch fire. I was suddenly aware it started the couch fire because I left when I saw the smoke. I was smart enough to know that couches, as a rule, do not smoke. However, I was not smart enough to go into the kitchen, and interrupt my mother's in-depth discussion of the doctors of "General Hospital". I bolted and stayed away from the house for a very long time. I do not believe it is on this day that I went to KMart to steal/ borrow the caps. I think it was only one crisis at a time, and this was just setting the couch on fire. The one real positive thing was mom's guest did notice that there was smoke coming from the living room. They were able to put out the fire before it did any real damage to the house. They immediately started looking for me, but I could not be found. It was later on the day that I returned to the house. I tried to blame my brother, but my mom did not buy it. Again, I am sure that discipline was applied, but I cannot remember. Maybe I blocked it out. I never played with matches again until much later in life. I believe it was not until I was in University at a campground with friends that I showed them the neat trick of flicking matches. They were all amazed and wanted to do it too. I was very clear to them and warned them that it is fine to do this into a campfire, but never in their houses, and never in their houses while sitting on a couch. They looked at me strangely, as if I thought they were idiots or something. I guess they already knew that it was not a good idea to play with matches inside the house. I guess some kids are smarter than others.

Another story comes to mind, but this one involves my brother and my sister and not my mom. She was busy but this time. I cannot tell you with what, but once again, we were left alone and unsupervised. The story starts innocently enough with my brother and I having a wonderful time about four blocks from our house at a park that had a playground. On this playground, they had one of those metal ships that kids use to pretend they are navigating through the stars on their way to Mars. We had been playing for what I am guessing a very long time because my mom sent our sister to retrieve us. She came to the park and tracked us down. She must not have wanted to do this job because she did not want to wait for us to finish. She just wanted to get us and leave. Of course, for my brother and I, that meant we could play tag. We scattered, and my sister gave chase. The more we ran, the angrier she became. You do not want to make my sister mad. She is not known for her patience. I have seen her mock store clerks, classmates and teachers because they made her wait. She has a very biting wit that is at her beck and call when the time comes that she needs it. As I have mentioned earlier, I was not a skinny lad. My brother, on the other hand, was as thin as a rail. When we were growing up, we were compared to Laurel and Hardy and Stan and Ollie. In reality, it was not a bad comparison because my brother was the straight man and I was the buffoon growing up. I did not like the comparison, but some things you cannot change, and this was one of them. I was going to be fat, and my brother was going to be thin. At this point, my brother was running and I was running. My sister, not being a fool, went after the weakest link. She went for me. I would like to say I was faster and I got away, but unfortunately, it was an easy catch. Even though I was an easy catch, I was not going to give up easily. I moaned, I groaned, I huffed and I puffed, but my sister was not going to quit. She was going to take us home, even if that meant she had to drag my brother and I. In fact, that was exactly what happened. She was dragging me home, when the worse thing that could have happened, happened. Some alcoholic who was probably too drunk to clean up after himself left a broken beer bottle on the ground. Of course, my sister was not charting the best path to get home, but just dragging me along. I was not concentrating on the direction I was being dragged, or trying to avoid any broken beer bottles.... so we collided. The beer bottle ripped open my wrist. When I say ripped open my wrist, I am not talking a small cut whereby I kept fighting to stay, but it was a gash that was spurting blood like a fountain. I quickly stop fighting and listened to my sister. My brother, at this point, also stopped running. We all knew that this was bad, and I needed help, but we were still a long way from home. I was bleeding badly. We quickly left the park and started heading home. I was crying, my brother was crying and my sister was crying. We must have been a sight because a lady comes out of her house to see what all the commotion was about. She saw my wrist and quickly grabbed a tea towel and wrapped it around my wrist tightly to slow down the blood loss. I believe today that if she did not come out and applied pressure to the wound, I would not be around today. We left her house and continue home. I do not know if I blacked out because the rest of the events after the neighbor, I do not remember. I do know that I lived because it was about three weeks later when it was time for the stitches to come out that we had a family meeting. It was decided that I did not need to go back to the hospital, but the family could remove the stitches themselves. So with a rusty pair of scissors, the stitches were removed and I went on my merry way. This is probably another occasion when mom should not have placed such a large responsibility on my sister. She never should have been in the position of authority to discipline her brothers or babysit her brothers. It is probably another nail in the coffin to the broken relationship my mom and my sister would later have in her adult years.

When it comes to the chapter title of who is your momma, it is not the same as it was for our dad. We really did not know our dad, but instead had really awful substitute dads. The title is more of a reflection of my mom's absenteeism in our lives. She was our mother, but at the same time, she was not. Our raising became the responsibility of tv, porn, gambling, stealing, and anything that gave us an escape, and a feeling of joy and happiness. I think all of us kids would love to have had moments with our mom growing up. We would have loved her to ask how we were doing, or how was school. We needed a grounding, a safe place, but mom just did not know what kids needed, because she was busy taking care of her needs. Who is your momma? In time, it would be my mom, but it would take my getting married, having three kids, and making the effort to see her. She might not have been a great mother, but she was a very good grandmother. She gave my kids something I never got- time.