Wise Up!
Mothers
By David Bruce
Athens NEWS Contributor
May 12, 2008
• When Savion Glover was a child, his mother, Yvette, a single parent with three children, used to ride a bus. The other passengers on the bus knew and liked her, and whenever she was late getting to the bus stop because of the time it took to get her children off to school, the other passengers would make the bus driver wait for her. Yvette took good care of her children. Savion became a renowned tap dancer at an early age, performing in the United States and in Europe. While visiting Monaco’s Monte Carlo, Yvette and Savion came across a nude beach. She quickly took her son to a different location. While the young Savion was performing in “Black and Blue,” he hung out backstage with the older, long-established tap dancers. Their language was salty, but Yvette knew that Savion would learn much worth knowing by hanging out with his heroes (and getting some male authority figures in his life), so she didn’t try to censor the language used backstage. Instead, she read her Bible, staying close enough to keep an eye on Savion but far enough away that she didn’t hear the salty language.
• Pablo Morales won Olympic medals for the U.S. swimming team in Los Angeles in 1984, but failed to make the United States Olympic swimming team in 1988. This devastated him, but after his mother died of cancer, another thing that devastated him, he decided to attempt to make the team so he could compete in Barcelona in 1992. On March 2, 1992, he competed in the U.S. Olympic trials in Indianapolis, hoping to swim well enough to make the Olympic team. His father, Pedro, was in the stands, watching. His father says, “I was there with my daughter. I asked my daughter whether she had brought a picture of Mom. She took it out of her purse and handed it to me. I held it up during the entire race so that she would be watching Pablo.” Pablo swam well, winning both his race and a spot on the Olympic team. And in Barcelona, he won gold in the 100-meter butterfly.
• In the days of slavery, a slave mother would sometimes be separated from her children. On a small farm in Tennessee, a slave named Fanny had an infant. Fanny’s owner wanted to separate Fanny from her infant. Fanny picked up the infant and threatened to bash its brains out unless her master allowed her to take her baby with her. Her master relented, and Fanny took the infant with her. In another, much less happy story, a slave woman named Margaret Garner tried to escape and run to freedom, taking her children with her. She was recaptured, but she succeeded in killing two of her children, preferring that they die rather than be returned to slavery.
• When Ralph Nader was in the eighth grade, one of the boys in his class said about a girI in their class, “What a pig.” The girl — who was friendly and whom everyone liked, at least until the onset of testosterone in this young male—heard him and was hurt. All young Ralph could think about was what his deeply moral mother would have told the boy, “I believe it’s you.” In this particular situation, that sentence means, “There’s nothing wrong with that girl. But there is something wrong with you.” Whenever Ralph or one of his siblings acted in a base manner, their mother would tell him or her, “I believe it’s you.”
• Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, a lesbian, gave birth to a son: Samuel David Cheney. Mary Cheney and her significant other, Heather Poe, are raising the boy. Such a situation makes some religious people uneasy, but not others. A church-going woman living in a conservative part of Houston thinks that the situation has its advantages. This woman is happily married with two little sons and a baby daughter, but she says, “Boy, wouldn’t it be great to let Mommy No. 2 take over while I get my hair done!”
• When comedian Margaret Cho’s mother went to the hospital, she left a treasure map for Margaret, showing where her jewelry was hidden around the house. For example, some pieces of jewelry were wrapped in tissue paper and placed in a coffee can, and other pieces of jewelry were hidden in other places around the house. Ms. Cho says that her mother was hiding jewelry as if a war was going on, and she is quick to add that yes, during President George W. Bush’s administration, a war is going on.
• On Mother’s Day of 1939, when Bob Feller was a young pitcher, he brought his mother to a game to watch him pitch. Unfortunately, a White Sox player fouled one of Mr. Feller’s pitches. At the game were over 40,000 fans, but the baseball hit Mr. Feller’s mother on the head and knocked her unconscious! Mr. Feller wanted to quit playing baseball after that, but his mother convinced him to keep playing, and baseball kept one of its best pitchers ever.
• An early boyfriend of comedian Phyllis Diller was Wayne Field Cameron — she even wore an ankle bracelet that had the initials “WCF” engaged on it. However, she didn’t want her mother to know about her boyfriend, so when her mother asked what the initials stood for, she answered, “Women’s Friendship Circle.”
• Lesbian comedian Judy Gold is a mother who is very happy that children today are growing up with less prejudice toward homosexuals than their parents had. One day, a child had a play date with Ms. Gold’s young son. After going home, the child complained, “Why can’t I have two moms?”
• David Bruce has written a bunch of books. Check them out at http://stores.lulu.com/bruceb.
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