Mama Said, Mama Said
“If all the other kids jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?”
“If you keep making that face, it will freeze that way!”
“Were you born in a barn?”
Every mom seems to know these phrases. They’re passed down through the ages: Grandma said them to mom. Mom used them on us. The same words mysteriously issue from our own mouths as the next generation of young ones appears.
Many of us heard these platitudes often enough to prepare snappy comebacks. I volunteered to package my lima beans and mail them to the starving children in Armenia. My friend Linda, who was Catholic, had a smartass answer to the born-in-a-barn question.
“Jesus was born in a barn,” she quipped. (Her mom’s snarky retort: “I bet he never left his clothes on the floor!”)
In addition to platitudes, we all hear some gold-plated originals, colorful phrases that capture mom’s unique character. Those words have the power to conjure up laughter and tears long after our moms have passed away.
In honor of Mother’s Day, I asked friends to share some of their moms most memorable phrases. Quite a few recall rural roots. My own mom, Myra Toussaint-Devine, who always spoke of the ice box and never the refrigerator, would sometimes look at me and observe, “You look about as mad as a wet hen.”
I had seen dry hens, but not wet ones. When we drove to a farm near Golden, Colorado to buy fresh eggs, I was tempted to grab a hose and douse a hen, just to see how mad she’d get.
I also recall my former mother-in-law — Reina Krause, a Brit — giving her son a quizzical look and chuckling, “What are you so chuffed about? You’re just cock-o-midden!” The phrase is pure Lancashire. Reina would trot this one out when David was overly impressed with himself. (“Cock of the midden” refers to a rooster crowing atop a dung heap.)
Tami Carson, a California teacher, says her mother Jo Fay Josephine used to exclaim, “You’re as awkward as a cow on a crutch.”
Some of my friends’ memories made me smile. Pam Kaiser Williams, daughter of Sondie Reiff, beloved of many here in Carbondale, says her mom would say, “Go put on a sweater. I’m cold.” Erin Dahl, my relative by marriage, recalls that her mom, Barbara Louise Merrill, always said that “ice cream fits in the cracks.” I certainly agree.
Other phrases took a philosophical turn. My friend Nancy Evan’s mother invoked fate by saying “good lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.” Genevieve Essex, mother of Randy Essex, former editor of the Glenwood Post Independent, would frequently remind him, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
Still other sayings strive to build character. Rich Larson’s mother Ruth Louise Larson told him, “Tell the truth and you never have to remember what you said,” while Honey Bunting’s mother, Lois Holloway, warned, “Lies have short legs, but eventually they will catch up with you.”
David Horowitz remembers his mother, Gladys Horowitz, telling him: “If you are really good, you will never have to tell people how good you are. They’ll tell you.” (The orange-haired resident in the White House apparently missed that one. He should heed a lesson imparted by Mary DeNike, mother of my longtime friend Lynette DeNike. To wit: “Pretty is as pretty does.”)
Moms have all kinds of warnings: “Do as I say, not as I do.” “Because I said so.” And “Don’t make me come in there.” That one’s so popular, it has been inscribed on decorative garden stones with an attributive twist: “Don’t make me come down there.” – God
Don Chaney, who works at KMTS in Glenwood Springs, says his mom would issue a pointed warning: “Do that again and you’ll be picking up your teeth.” Bonedalian Valerie Gilliam says she would get an invitation to “go play on the freeway” when she and her brothers were overly rambunctious. “In my young brain, I thought she meant it literally,” says Valerie. “I would imagine myself playing on the freeway and it wasn’t any fun.” She finally had to ask her mom for an explanation.
Among the other head-scratchers I heard from friends is this one: Bread, bread, he cried—and the curtain came down with a roll!” Margaret Mary Shea used to say that, and her daughter Jane Shea Reagan never did figure out what it meant. “But we all say it now,” Jane comments.
Well, in the words of my friend Indra Ferry’s mother Joan Dawson, another Brit, “There’s nothing stranger than folks.”
Yes, there is. Moms. That’s just part of why we love them.
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Published May 16, 2018 in the Seeking Higher Ground Column of the Sopris Sun.