“Try being a Maxim Mom”

By

Gerry Niskern

There\ is a lot of lamenting out there about how hard it is to be a parent.

Do you parents out there want to know how to raise good kids? Try being a Maxim Mom or Dad. When your kids argue over control of the remote, tell them to “Just be big about it!” If Junior balks at attending his sister’s dance recital, remind him that the family always supports each other because “blood is thicker than water.”

My mother had a maxim for every occasion. I always thought she made them up as she went along, but then I found out they had been around for decades and will still be here for each generation of mothers to use.

When I was a kid my mother sent me to the grocery store for bread with a dime and no penny for tax. She said, you just tell them “It’s a sin to tax the daily bread”.

When I was a teenager and my boyfriend and I reached the front porch after a date, the door lights blazed on. I was sure she thought smugly, “I nipped that in the bud!”

On the day she learned that I had ditched classes at Phoenix Union, she declared,

That she was “Mad as a wet hen” and if I thought I had gotten away with it, I had “another thought coming.” She went on, you have “cooked your own goose” and your dad is going to “land on you like a ton of bricks!”

Years later, she started every Monday morning with samples of a new recipe that “melted in your mouth”, for the young women that worked in my parents small manufacturing business. She helped them at their work tables while dispensing liberal doses of her views on good morals. She advised them to break it off with abusive boyfriends because “a leopard can’t change his spots,” especially if he is “four sheets to the wind.”

            If a new employee was having a hard time, I would get a call to bring some clothes from my own kids because a young mother was having a rough time and was “between the devil and the deep blue sea!” Along with the clothes, she gave them a cash advance on their first paycheck when my dad wasn’t looking.

Later, when I told my petulant daughter, who wanted permission to start dating,  to “stop those crocodile tears,” young lady, “You are skating on thin ice”, I knew I had finally turned into my mother!

! HERE’S  AN “OLDIE BUT GOODIE” FROM ONE OF MY ARIZONA REPUBLIC COLUMNS.

“There are no Strangers”

By

Gerry Niskern

The toddler reached a frightening height in the tunnel. Slowly he inched his chubby knees upward, higher and higher. His parents gasped as he turned a corner and suddenly slid down, collapsing in a heap of giggles on the cork floor. I had just witnessed one of the many activities small children engage in every day at the numerous meetings of the mini United Nations across our valley.  Mac Donald’s has only one requirement for a junior emissary to take part: You must take off your shoes!

The munchkin with me raced ahead to join the kids in the play area. I slid into a bench and placed our burgers on the table. Glancing around, I smiled at two or three groups of adults and received fleeting nods in return. My glance fell on the rack where the kids stashed their shoes.

Little hiking boots, black patent tap shoes, moccasins, Birkenstocks, Hi-lites, ballet slippers, and cowboy boots spilled out of the cubbyholes in the Sneaker Keeper. It would be interesting to know if their choice of footwear now was an indication of their future life.

Looking up, I waved at my little charge as she rounded a corner in the maize of tunnels above our heads. Measured in a child’s eyes, those tunnels must seem a thousand feet high and ten miles long. The bright colored tubes and rectangular forms connect to form a wonderland of play. The delegates at these multi-cultural gatherings have a ball crawling through the tunnels, negotiating with their fellow climber’s crowded curves and angles. Close behind her a Middle Eastern boy, in long baggy shorts (he owned the Hi-Lites) willingly took a detour to let a timid little Asian boy scoot past.

The sky- diver I saw earlier ran over to greet a little blond ballerina in a purple leotard, and grab a quick hug. She quickly stashed her ballet slippers in the shoe rack and headed for the pool of bright colored balls. Soon she was teaching a couple of Latino girls how to do a back flip into the ocean of balls. Meanwhile, a fussy future homemaker was busy gathering the stray balls that bounced out and tossing them back into the kaleidoscope of color.

High above, a doctor to be, neatly combed hair and immaculate clothes, turned a corner and comes face to face with black eyes, bronze skin and high cheek bones. The Native American doesn’t move an inch. Doc moves to the right, the future tribal leader blocks the way. Suddenly, a female, with red curls and blue eyes scoots around the corner and can’t get through. Tears start and the chief and surgeon hastily draw aside to let Miss American slide by.

Meanwhile, down on the floor, a blonde toddler hurries over and gently rocks the cradle carrier containing a fussy African American infant. The baby’s big sister is helping another child tie his shoes.

It doesn’t seem to matter whether their new playmates wear clothes that are new or ragged, clean or dirty. The color of their skin is not important. I couldn’t help thinking that sooner or later, most of these kids will experience discrimination, rejection, bigotry, fear, and maybe even violence. Would this brief interlude of play frozen in childhood ever be theirs again?

If someone arrived on earth from another planet, we would have a difficult time explaining why the little people mingle, but the big ones do not. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the adults had to introduce themselves before they could pick up their lunch and escort their kids to the play yard?

Better yet, at the next summit meeting of our world leaders, I suggest the entrance to the conference be located at a giant tunnel maze.  The presidents, prime ministers and kings could brush up on their negotiating skills before tackling the problems of the world.

I think our neighborhood kids would give them just one word of advice: Don’t forget to wear clean socks!

Off sick today, but here is a favorite blog post of mine. I hope you enjoy it again.

“The Stir Stick”

By

Gerry Niskern

There used to be a running joke in our family about who will inherit the “stir stick”. Which offspring will be deemed worthy of the old pine stick that my grandmother, my dad’s mother,  used to stir her clothes in the big tubs hold the laundry rinse water?   That piece of pine was bleached white and worn smooth as satin as she stirred the clothes round and round the old tubs till they were rinsed clean. She raised six children all alone by taking in boarders and laundry, with the help of that one small stir stick.

My own mother inherited the stick from her mother-in-law and used it many years. However, somewhere along the way the stick was retired, pushed to the back of a cupboard.  That probably happened when she purchased her first automatic washer.

She didn’t get a dryer though. Mom insisted on having the fresh breath of wind and sun on her towels and sheets. Actually, she didn’t take quickly to any new gadgets for the home. I wonder what she would have thought about the new cooking parties that the young homemakers are giving?

I can imagine Mom’s running commentary on the latest cooking tools.

As the hostess carefully demonstrates how the new colanders can be used to drain not only pasta, but also canned peaches; I can just hear Mom saying, “What’s wrong with using the can lid like always?”

The innovative measuring cups have a cup on either end, so if one’s messy, you can use the other end. Mom’s comment would be “Ever hear of measuring the dry first, then the wet?”

The new baking stones are touted to bake every cookie perfectly even. “But what if you have one kid like his cookies real soft, while another wants his dark and crisp. And then there’s dad who likes the date bars cut from the edge of the pan because they’re crunchier?”

The exhibition of the special onion chopper and handy tomato slicer would have brought the retort,  “use a knife.” When the hostess explains that the new garlic press can be used in a real emergency to crush bullion cubs.  Mom would say, “Make your own chicken broth, it’s better for you.”

Don’t even mention the improved spatulas that sell for thirteen dollars!  “Nonsense. Cake batter tastes just as good licked off a ninety-eight cent spoon.”

Something tells me those women, like Mom, of years ago who melted down their soap pieces on Sunday evening to get ready for Monday’s wash and saved their potato water to make gravy, wouldn’t be good ones to invite to today’s cooking parties.

But actually, if you look closely, some of  the old customs are new again.  Nostalgia is back in a big way. Young couples are snapping up the old Victorian homes. They’re hanging lace curtains and searching for handmade quilts.  Spinning wheels and butter churns are sought after items to place in the entry hall and Grandpa’s wicker rocking chair is sought for the front porch.

The latest trend is to knit your own afghans; some women’s magazines are now carrying complete instructions.  The sewing pattern industry is reporting a big comeback as stay- at- home Mom’s are buying sewing machines.

Cooking is back.  On kitchen stoves the size of small Volkswagens, today’s homemakers are simmering Thai stews and soups with Eastern-European flavors as they celebrate their ethnic backgrounds.

Everyone is embracing the “rootedness” of the home. They’re very keen on traditions. Parents desire a way of life they can pass on to their children.

The other day I saw some antique, hand decorated wash tubs hanging on a back patio. Since I’ve been hanging on to that old piece of bleached pine, I’ve been wondering, is it possible that we might see the return of the “stir stick?”

Nah.

“To Move or Not to Move”

by

Gerry Niskern

It startles, even when you are expecting to see it. Graffiti. Large, bright symbols blaring across a pristine white fence.

A fence that for years embraced a yard full of kids; jumping into the pool, playing hide and seek, dribbling a basketball.

“Look at it,” our friend, the owner of the fence, demanded. “We’d like to paint over it, but our kids say, wait a while, otherwise they’ll just be back to mark their territory again.”

Of course, he should paint over it immediately, that’s a given. But that’s just the beginning. There are more repercussions, what I call the rippling effect.   Our harried friend said, “Our kids want us to move.  They’re worried something worse might happen.”

I’ve heard this statement many times over the past few years. Friends who bought their homes as newlyweds.  They expected to raise  their families in those modest, middle class homes and then live out their lives there.

They kept their yards neat and trimmed. Painting and repairs were done when necessary. They looked out for each others’ kids. Now they look out for each other, check if something seems amiss. The mail is brought in and trash cans put out when someone goes on vacation.

Then one day they see wrought iron bars being installed on windows down the street. Someone mentions a house has been robbed. Then another…more bars, security system signs go up and then….for sale signs.

That’s the easiest answer. Get out of there.

Their adult children, out of concern for their safety, of course, start telling them to move. “Go to one of those safe gated communities”  After a while, they  get tired of arguing and give in.

Others stay put.  The defiant. The brave.

“Courage has nothing to do with it,” one of my friends chuckled. “We can’t afford to move. Where would we go? One of those $4 or 5,000  a month retirement places. We can’t pay those fees! Our home is paid for. It’s finally fixed up the way we wanted it to be, and I’ll be darned if we’re leaving now!”

He and his wife are staying put. They’re just like my eighty-five year old friend who has recently purchased  a walker to help her get around her large yard and get her trimming done.

One fellow I know has been slowly acquiring wood working tools. He’s been looking forward to spending his retirement years building wooden porch swings to sell to supplement his social security income. Sorry, retirement apartments don’t come with spacious garages for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Another woman I know has a magnificent back yard garden on a huge wedge shaped back yard. After the kids no longer needed it for play, she spent the last twenty years creating a bountiful wonderland. She and her husband aren’t about to give it up….despite many  crimes in the surrounding area last year.

My hat goes off to them, and to another couple who live at the end of Central Avenue. Every evening, from their porch, they watch as the glow of sunset changes to darkness and a black onyx valley below fills with thousands of twinkling lights like precious stones spread out for their pleasure.

No one’s chasing them out of the area and believe it or not, their ancient neighborhood is gradually changing back from neglected rentals to charming, well kept  bungalows. The trend is reversing. Young couples who buy in the area are remodeling, painting and landscaping.

Kudos to the stalwarts who don’t give up. They are staying put in their homes they worked hard to buy and cared for so diligently. Now they are enjoying the mature trees, gardens, and friendships they   nurtured all those years.

Don’t leave it to them….they don’t deserve it!