My mother was a remarkable woman. "Lots of spunk" would be a good way to describe her. She was a fiery redhead, and she was just as feisty as Lucille Ball.
When my mom praised other people for having "personality plus," she was also including herself. She always complained that her vivacity did not "rub off" on her two sons, but she did not realize how difficult it was to develop any personality at all in her presence.
She had a quick wit and peppered her speech with colorful phrases. At a beautiful view or a nice piece of craftwork (usually her own), she would say "feast your eyes on this."
One phrase that I repeat puzzles everyone. When anyone had failed at a task (and that was often), my mother would immediately advise: "You'll just have to lick your (cow) calf over again."
Her remarks could also cut to the quick. I remember coming home and showing my first publication to my parents. It was on the religious view of the Founding Fathers, and my father said something like "Good job, son." My mother's response was "I don't care about those old farts."
When my dad wanted to take his two sons to an elk hunting camp in Troy, Ore., my mom would always object: Her dear boys' ears would be subjected to crude language. The delicious irony was that she was the dirty joke teller in the family. My dad would turn beet red when she told one of her stories.
My mother's family were tight-fisted Scots-Irish from Missouri, and my brother and I never understood one of most her provocative statements: "Did you know that people from Missouri have blue bellies?"
We were afraid to ask about these strange stomachs. We certainly didn't want her to show us, either, even though I later learned Missouri is the "Show Me" state.
Even after much Internet search, I am none the wiser about my mom's amazing pronouncement. Because of their blue uniforms and their alleged penchant for cowardice, Union troops were known to crawl on blue bellies. Missourians, however, supported both sides in the war, so many of them would have gray stomachs instead.
My mother was a very enterprising woman. She helped her own mother run a boarding house in Evanston, Wyo., and she always boasted about running her own hot dog stand in that city.
She also bragged she overruled her mother about not having a room for a handsome man who showed up in the middle of the night. She gave up her own room, slept on the couch, and married that man after a two-week courtship.
My mother was a creative craftswoman. She would make beautiful artificial corsages and sell them at local taverns. While my father drank at the bar, my teetotaling mother - all tarted up - would persuade men (she didn't take "no" for an answer) to buy a corsage for their wives. She could easily make $50 in a night.
After reading one of my columns about speaking at a faculty meeting, she created a masterpiece. It is a driftwood collage with carefully chosen gnarled pieces that look like craggy, old professors.
I am a hybrid of my mother and father. In person I'm much like my calm and gentle father, but my mom comes out in my political activities and writing.
Thank you, Mother, for giving me that special spirit (albeit sometimes impolitic) and drive that have made me what I am. If there is anything funny in this column, it came directly from you.
Nick Gier taught philosophy and religion at the University of Idaho for 31 years and is president of the Idaho Federation of Teachers.
