i’ve been in the memory mode for a couple of weeks. Lots of reasons. Primarily, i’m remembering because i’m old and wishing for all things past that were good. i’m always amazed i forget the bad things first.

But one memory is both good and bad. Certainly bad at the time.

It happened in church. The First Methodist Church in Lebanon, Tennessee. On East Main. The Sunday night service, probably around 7:20 p.m., maybe a bit later. 1960 or 1961. It was about in the middle of the pews under the balcony. That’s where we would sit. In other services, the 8:30 a.m. or 11:00 a.m. services, we would sit with our families. But on Sunday nights, it was a whole different thing. Everything was different. Sometimes they would even roll in the piano from the fellowship hall or the choir room or the old hall in the old wing and play it instead of the pipe organ. The men’s chorus assembled for a supper cooked by the women in Fellowship Hall, while on the other side of the partition, the Methodist Youth Fellowship attended their weekly meeting. After the supper, the men would practice their one or two specials for the service and then the two groups would filter into the sanctuary where the wives and younger children would take their seats. Under the balcony was the not really but really reserved seats for the MYF attendees, at least a majority of them.

As i remember this evening, Henry Harding, Sharry Baird, Jimmy Gamble, Marcia Emmert, Linda Leftwich, Ann Clark, Martha Donnell, several more i will remember as soon as i post this, and me. i am guessing my sister was there too. i’m not sure all of these folks were there, but that was the usual cast of suspects. i cannot remember if i was sitting next to Sharry or Linda, but i’m sure it was one of them. Henry was sitting on my other side with Jimmy Gamble next to him. i actually think i remember Judy Lewis had left the MYF session early for some reason. i remember watching her head out of the back door of Fellowship Hall wondering where she was going.

The opening rituals had been observed, and as usual two or three gospel songs had been sung. The men’s choir had sung their special arrangement directed by the choir director of all things, Burton Wilson, and was singing another special for the offertory. The ushers had passed the collection plate back and forth along the aisles of the main sanctuary and begun the collection process under the balcony — the balcony was nearly always empty during the 8:30 and evening services but packed to the gills at the 11:00 service when the Castle Heights cadets would march from the hilltop down main to the church, file in, remain militarily silent during the service, file out and march back up to the campus at the conclusion.

Amongst the MYFer’s, silence was not golden during that evening service. Whispering was the modus operendi in between the gospel songs. Occasionally, a titter might become a muffled laugh, but looked upon askance by the group, while ignored by the minister and the congregation although i’m sure mothers and fathers were taking mental notes. Actually i know because of the several lectures i received on the way home.

i would like to blame at least part of it on one of the others with me, but i had already established myself as a goofball and bumbler. i have later added forgetful and artful loser of things of all sorts. i think this particular incident sealed my fate.

When the collection plate ushers came to our aisle, the collection plate moved from our right to the left. Being the evening service, the plate did not contain a lot of the tithing envelopes or larger bills like the morning services. The evening service yielded some five and one dollar bills and lots of change.

i know there was lots of change in that plate that night because as Sharry passed it to me (i’m now pretty sure it was Sharry), i reached into my pocket for a quarter or more with my right hand while reaching for the plate with my left hand.

This was not a wise decision or a good move. The gold metal plate with the maroon cloth bottom slipped from my left hand and dropped to the floor. It made a loud clanging noise as hit the wood floor. Change was rolling everywhere. The plate did not lay down but rolled crazily under the pews toward the front of the sanctuary. To me, the clang sounded like a nuclear blast and the noise of the plate and change rolling everywhere was a cacophony of an orchestra warming up with discordant notes.

i tried to act as if nothing had happened as church goers began to collect what change they could and pick up the finally still collection plate to hand back to the ushers. Of course, the gang around me was giggling and trying suppress outright guffaws.

It was not a good night for me. i think it started me down my path of goofiness, which i have never lost.

As anyone who frequently reads my posts should know, i am not a fan of government declared or what i deem silly holidays, like Valentine’s Day.

i save my vitriol on Mother’s Day because it just seems disrespectful. But, of course, i wrote my post about the mothers connected to me today.

Then, when i was driving to brunch with Maureen and Sarah, i passed, as usual, the Glen Abby Memorial Gardens. i don’t think my wife or daughter noticed, but i did.

The woman stood by herself on the hillside. She wore black, but it was not pure black. She had long black hair. i could not see her face, but she looked young, and i guessed pretty. From my distance, it looked like the long dress had flowers in the black fabric. Roses, perhaps, i thought. When i was growing up and we went to church on Mother’s Day, in addition to being dressed up and spit shined by our mother, we all wore roses. If your mother had passed away, you wore a white rose. If you mother was living, you wore a red rose. What a nice tradition it was. i hoped the flowers on the woman’s dress were white roses.

In the short glimpse i had as i was driving by, she was looking at a headstone, as if she were praying, or perhaps talking. i really don’t know that either, but that’s the way i wanted to remember her. i did.

It occurred to me the government, actually President Woodrow Wilson, got this one right. i think it good, cleansing, healing, and respectful to take one day and dedicate it to remembering and thanking mothers.

The woman on the hill made me realize that.

My mother and i did not always get along, but we always knew who was in charge, and up until her last day, she was in charge. Part of that was because she had the strong arm and will of Jimmy Jewell behind her, and there was no way i was going up against him about a disagreement with her.

She was in the emergency room on April 29, five years ago. Her pain, though mitigated by the magic drugs, was still great. She was tired. i suspect she was tired, not of living because she had been full of spunk that morning in Elmcroft’s beauty parlor when i dropped by on our way to Nashville, but tired of living without her husband of 75 years who had left her nine months earlier.

The specialist had pulled me aside and told me there were some serious decisions to be made. Estelle could have surgery, but the percentages of success were about 75/25 against. Even then, there was no guarantee how long she would last. Or we could give her meds and monitor her, but that would likely be the end. Even though i had talked to both of my parents about such a moment and knew well their “living wills,” i knew, as long as she was mentally capable, i would have to ask her.

i walked back into the emergency room, bent over the emergency room bed, and said, “Mother, you have to decide what we are going to do here.”

She said, “No. You make the decision. i don’t want to.”

i knew she had put me in charge, and i had the responsibility of her life in my hands.

i told the specialist, “She doesn’t want surgery.”

After her grandson, Tommy Duff and i had split spending the night with her, she passed away while sleeping a little earlier than expected. Tommy; his mother  and her daughter Martha; Maureen, whom she loved unconditionally as a daughter-in-law; and i were in the room with her.

i have thought about that in-charge thing a lot in the past five years. My mother ruled our house  with an iron hand. The rubber ball and rubber band had been removed from its paddle. That paddle sat atop the refrigerator, and when Estelle Jewell started reaching to the top of the refrigerator, i knew i was in trouble, big, red-rear-end trouble.

That was the way they knew how to raise their children in those days. It wasn’t wrong because they didn’t know it was wrong. It wasn’t abuse because it was done for mid-course correction of a child. We were to be seen and not heard. We were to say “please” and “yes, ma’am” or “yes, sir.”

We have since learned a lot about parenting. Her rules no longer apply. But her (and my father’s) rules worked because there was never a doubt in my mind they applied those rules and the consequences of disobeying them because they loved me and wanted me to learn to do the right thing.

i suspect nearly everyone out there has had contentious moments with their mothers. Those are forgotten today because we have a national day declared for honoring them. And we remember how they loved us.

So happy and well-deserved Mother’s Day to all of you mothers who have shown your love without limit.

And a special wonderful day wish for Kathie Jewell, who has been the best mother for Blythe and grandmother for Sam because of her unconditional love of them, and for Blythe who has been as good a mother as one could get for my grandson Sam, and Maureen who has been the same for Sarah.

P.S. i’m glad Estelle Jewell was in charge for so long.

Well, it started all right. i mean, this morning i was up and at ’em, ready to take on the world…okay, okay, maybe not the world but i had a lot of things on my plate.

But i slowed down somewhere around nine and started piddling. i’m good at piddling. Perhaps it is the weather. For this year up to now, Southern California ain’t. Record rains in the winter, the usual thirty days of clouds with traces of rain compared to what we had back home stretched from January to March and never really went away, including clouding up the first days of May, one of my favorite times of the year out here, all the way into “May Gray” and i’m afraid continuing through “June Gloom.”

But that’s seaport weather and shouldn’t put me in a funk. After all, it’s pleasant playing golf in cloudy cool weather, even with a mist. And it reminds me of the myriad of ports into which i sailed over the years: clouds, mist, small white caps on the seas, with mountains inland warmed by shawls of clouds over their shoulders like Mount Miguel yesterday morning.

Which led me to thinking of Newport which led me to thinking of shipmates. One in particular came back into mind when Maureen and i wandered over to North Park in the early evening yesterday for an early supper at one of our favorite spots, The Rose Wine Bar where we shared their delicious salad, a margarita pizza, and their rather incredible strawberry shortcake with the ice cream made right there. We liked it. Rather than show you the lovely display when served, i give you what it looked like before we made the bartender take it back.

But that wasn’t what made me think of Andrew Nemethy, whom i have written about before. Maureen tasted several wines, white and rosé. i, however, saw a red listed, the fourth on the list, with the description ending in “Hu.” To be sure i asked the bartender if that meant it was from Hungary. Well, i gotta tell you, Andrew, the Kardaka ’17 was spectacular. This is the second glass and it didn’t last long either.

Not like anything i had at the Black Pearl Tavern on the pier in Newport, Rhode Island, but then, i usually had beer with the best Boston Clam Chowder ever while listening to Jody sing folk songs with the parrot squawking not quite in tune. But that was another time, another place where what i called spring rolling through in late May yet better than the two days i felt spring in late June in Watertown, New York, but that too was another time, another place, long ago.

So i woke up this morning, raring to go, or at least raring for someone who passed three quarters of a century about four months ago. And what did i find for my work outside? Yup. Another one of those cloudy and dank days with sprinkles of rain daring me to finish my work on my trellis. But you know, it is what you make it, and when i walked around the backyard, it was sort of pretty in its own, peaceful way:

That’s about when i started piddling.