For my mother’s 90th birthday, we gathered at our house in Springfield, Virginia.  Bill, my older brother and his wife, Jeanette, came up from Hendersonville, North Carolina and Mom and Karen, my younger sister, flew in from Phoenix.  We spent the entire weekend celebrating.

I mentioned Mom’s older brother, Leslie, in the poem.  Whenever he got mad at Mom, he would tell her he was going out to the garage to sharpen the ax.  As for as we know, he never used it on anyone.

Between Bill and me, we played baseball four nights a week.  It conflicted with the dinner meal, but Mom just made sure we all got fed.  Back then, I didn’t think much about the imposition.  Kids just play and expect to eat.

Karen, Jeanette and my wife, Carole, were all selected as Football Queens for our high school.  It was a big thing at East Side High.

And, yes, we vacationed at Sammy Lane Resort in Branson, Missouri, when the downtown area consisted of one block.  Sammy Lane’s swimming pool was drained every Monday and refilled with spring water.  It was Wednesday or Thursday before you could actually swim in the icy water.

On that weekend, we sat and told the stories that had become legend in the Rice household.  There’s the one where I was talking to Bill and threw my arms up gesturing backwards.  The window screen gave way and I fell out of our first floor bedroom window.  I ran around the house crying and came in the kitchen door.  Mom asked me what happened and I told her and then, pointed at Bill.  I said, “He was there when I fell out the window.”  Bill said, “I noticed he stopped talking.”  It’s tough being a middle child.

Mom will be 93 in July.  A couple of years back, she had a mild stroke, and has made an excellent recovery.  She is back exercising on her treadmill.


                           CELEBRATION

We’re having a  gathering, a significant event,
It’s Mother’s birthday, it’s time well spent.
She is ninety and counting and spry as could be,
Working mind and body, she’s fit A to Z.

She lived through the Depression and the Japanese attacks,
Got along with her siblings, except Leslie with the ax.
Married as a teen and a child when she was 20,
Bill and Jack and Karen Ann and boy that was plenty.

Devoted to her family, of chores we will not speak,
Except juggling the meals, around four ball games a week.
With only one daughter, as mysterious as it seems,
Before it was over, she had three football queens.

Vacation in the Ozarks, bees and wasps a humming,
Cabins weren’t much to look at, but at least they had indoor plumbing.
But the locations got better, and we did cavort,
In the icy cold pool, at Sammy Lane’s Resort.

She’s done her share of traveling, there’s not much fun in that,
It’s not easy with crying kids and tires that will go flat.
Airplanes are not her bag and ships make her shiver,
Yet, she’s rafted, yes, rafted down the Colorado River.

After years and years in Illinois, she moved out to the West,
Then Florida, to Illinois, but Arizona passed the test.
She’s living with Karen and keeps her conservative views,
She watches Fox Broadcasting for “fair and balanced” news.

Now with her children present, we look back through the years,
Seeing all the good times and noticing some tears.
We know that she is special, there really is no other,
The woman that we love, the woman we call Mother.