Poor Louie

Around Mother’s Day, I usually start to think about my mother.  There is so many things that I didn’t know about her and most of them I didn’t know that I didn’t know.  I could never figure my parents out; I was into novels and movies, which she thought were a waste of time when I could be riding my bike or talking on the phone with my friends who were real people.  She thought I was “a funny little thing,” but I was her “funny little thing” and she did the best she could.

One time I asked Aunt Pooh if my grandparents had ever had my mother tested.

“You mean for intelligence?  I don’t think so.  I don’t think they believed in that.”

“No, I mean to see if there was anything wrong with her.  You know how she was . . .”

“Because she was so literal and unimaginative?  Charlie have you been watching psychology shows on PBS?”

I have to admit that I can be a psychological hypochondriac. I can recite the Danger Signs of Depression from memory.  Somehow, it’s not as good a party trick as knowing all six wives of Henry VIII.

“Well, I don’t think there was anything wrong.  She was just different, at least in our family.  You know those novels about the artist stuck in a family of down to earth people who feels alienated?  Well, it must have been like that for Louie.  Fortunately, she was able to get to know kids whose fathers were in the Engineering or Chemistry or Physics Departments.  By the way, it was only the fathers.  The mothers were home cooking and cleaning and going to American Association of University Women meetings.  I don’t know if the science department mothers drank or if it was just the humanities moms.  That was one reason we moved to the country when my father got tenure.  My mother couldn’t deal with the faculty wives.” 

“Do you think she felt she was a disappointment to Grandma and Grandpa?”

“Probably.  But then, doesn’t everyone?  They really didn’t give her a hard time, but they couldn’t figure her out.  My mother used to say, ‘that poor little thing is missing out on so much.’  My friends and I would play House or Cops and Robbers or Princesses and she would wrinkle her nose and say ‘Why?’ She always wanted to ride bikes or roller skate or climb trees.  That was fun (well, the roller skating anyway) but not as much fun as playing Princesses.  Of course” (Aunt Pooh looked a little sheepish) “part of the problem may have been that my friends and I always made her be the servant.  We would clap our hands and yell, ‘Servant’ and she had to bow and say, ‘Yes your majesty.’    Then we would order her to clean the palace or fix a banquet for us.  Finally, she would run off and complain to my mother, who would give her something to eat.”

“Didn’t Grandma yell at you?”

“She would have had to find us first, because we would hide somewhere.  Anyway, she thought it was more worthwhile to comfort the victim than go after the perpetrators.” 

 “Do you think she was happy?”

“As happy as a middle child can be with me bossing her and Hank getting extra attention because he was the baby.  She liked school and she had her friends and she was pretty.  She got good grades and won science prizes.  She dated nerdy science guys that she met at the Chess Club or at Sunday School.  She liked them.  They always had something to talk about and I don’t think they got fresh.”

I didn’t sound like a bad life to me.