Topic: Dailies

Mother's Day 2010

by

Leo Crocker Rogers

My mother is Mary Crocker Rogers.

The glory of our family was that my dad, Ralph, had his responsibilities and mother had her’s. Not that my mother did not work, she did. But she also managed our home house. Dad and I lived there under her tutoring and care.

Typically, for a young’n, the father is the prodder – swing batter batter swing, climb a bit higher, use a socket wrench for this application, and the mother is the safety net – I would come home bloody from a fall and mother was there to tend to my wounds (and Dad too) and to reassure me all was okay.

But my mother was a bit different. She not only was our family’s safety net, she was also my work ethic guide. When just a little boy, she would pull my American Flyer full of papers, and I would run from the wagon to houses to door knob the papers. Later, when I had my bicycle paper route and collected hundreds of dollars from my customers, my mother would wash and iron the money that I could give fresh bills to my paper route manager. She encouraged my saving money. That paid off later when she, my sister Chloe, and I had to take a train from San Diego to Houston, and my savings paid for our tickets. My, how that made me feel good. I was a contributor. Mother had prepared the way for that good feeling.

Not that men cannot be a family safety net. In college, away from home but living near my sister, I was academically doing poorly. Visiting my sister, she tore me limb from limb for my poor performance. She married early, and I late so I went to college and she did not. My parents paid the way for my college, and I was not doing well. Well, I was in tears. I was feeling so guilty that I could not even raise my head. While I was sobbing, my bother-in-law came into the room, and saw me completely broken and my sister still ripping me. He stopped her, and held me. I was a blob. He said that she did not mean what she said – she certainly did and I deserved every cut – and that things would be okay. With that care, I withdrew from that college and went home to my parents. There, I registered for a local college and did well in physics.

It is good that in a family, there are those that prod us and those that protect us. My mother did not prod, but she certainly did promote as well as save. I believe that there may be more mothers like my mother than men like my brother-in-law.

Today is Mothers’ day. Bless the mothers. We men young’ns need our mother’s guidance so we can grow to be like my brother-in-law, Mr. Hank Cobb.