Gold Coins and Cooley Caps

Writing a blog five days a week that is at least somewhat funny and occasionally very funny can be quite hard at times. The way I write makes it difficult because I do not plan anything out. I just wait for something to pop into my head and I go with it. Today, I am suffering from writer’s block. There’s simply nothing poppin’!!

I was thinking about writing about my mom. She passed away in June and today would have been her 85th birthday. This past Labor Day my family got together and went through all of her stuff. We performed the essential, yet ghoulish task of seeing who wanted what. There was a cedar chest she purchased in 1944 that one of my sister’s took, tablecloths, old clothes of ours that she saved, and various other items that one accumulates over nine kids, eight decades, and one great husband and father.

A couple of my brothers and I frantically searched for the cache of gold coins that we were confident had been secreted away somewhere in the house, perhaps in a tin can or a hollowed out bible, but alas our search was fruitless. I did manage to walk away with a couple of treasures. I came across the ID wristband that she wore while she was delivering me on Sunday February 7, 1965. That day marked her last day in the baby making business (by all verifiable accounts, anyway) as she shot the 10 lb 22 inch Matt-Man out into the world. Nineteen years of producing a clan of nine, had finally come to an end.

I also grabbed a sweatshirt that she saved. It was a shirt that I wore every single day when I was 4 or 5. It had a cartoon of Linus and Snoopy sitting together and of course plenty of food stains all over it, but what the heck it looked great to me. I procured the T- shirt that I got during our vacation in Bardstown, Kentucky. Mom and Dad took the youngest kids to see the outdoor drama/musical “The Stephen Foster Story”. They were by no means well to do, but somehow every summer they would manage to take us somewhere.

I came across a very prized possession that had long been forgotten, my authentic Chinese Cooley cap, made in Vietnam of course. My sister had gotten it for me when she was in Vietnam during the war. I immediately put it on, and turned to two of my brothers and said, “We go to PX now, Big Boy?” Oh yeah, it was a wacky day, indeed. In fact, there was a heated debate over how many Bolo Paddles Mom had shattered across the backsides of my older brothers and sisters. I of course, escaped said punishment because I was such a good boy. Okay, actually it was because I was the last of nine, and Mom and Dad were just worn out by then. They even went light on me during the Goose Egg incident.

I took a couple of other little things, such as the “scary” pop-up book that my dad would read to my son, and I will be handing it over to him this weekend. However, the best thing that I walked away from the house with, was by and far all of my memories of Mom and Dad and all of my annoying siblings. It was, at times, the best of times.

Happy Birthday, Mom, and thanks for breaking my writer’s block.

And Now, Our Moment of Hinn…

“I have come to realize that God is sovereign, and there are things I just don't understand.”

--Benny Hinn (Ed. Note: Say it isn’t so…)