Flowers? Candy? Which kind of a son or daughter are you? The kind who gives mom
flowers or candy for Mother’s Day?
But, let me ask you this, do you remember what was the very first gift you ever gave your mother on Mother’s Day? I do.
I was still in early grade school. I didn’t have much money, but I wanted to get Mom something just from me, instead of my Dad buying her something and saying it was from us kids.
I didn’t know what to get her, but I knew where. Just a short bike ride from our house was a neighborhood shopping area where everyone bought most of the necessities of life.
In just one block there was a drug store, a sporting goods store, a department store, a movie theater, an ice cream parlor, a hardware store, a liquor store, a barber shop and — best of all — a shoe store that had an x-ray machine we could stick our feet into and watch our toe bones wriggle.
I didn’t have enough money for any of these places. So, I headed for the two dime stores. And at Woolworth’s, I found it. The Gift.
No, I didn’t pull a Leave It to Beaver and buy my Mom a baseball, or the latest Batman comic.
I didn’t get her a kid gift, but something useful for a grown-up. What it was this real neat book of checks, you know, like waitresses have to write down what you order and to give you your bill. This one had a cover that kind of looked like leather.
More Top Picks Best Mirrorless Cameras Under 1000 Dollars
My Mom could use this for a lot of things, like making store lists, or a list of things to do, or what to buy people for Christmas or birthdays.
I even thought she could give my Dad a check for dinner some night.
Pretty funny, huh? She didn’t do that.
In fact, I’m not sure what she did with the check book. She smiled, thanked me and kissed me when I gave it to her, I remember that. I guess she liked it.
Next year my sister insisted that she and I and our brother go in together and buy Mom a Mother’s Day gift.
And being a girl, she naturally insisted on picking out the gift – a foot-high plaster statue of the Virgin Mary.
That was appropriate, too, I conceded. If not as useful as a check book.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.