Mama Said

“Mama said there’ll be days like these, there’ll be days like these my mama said…” The Sherilles


My mama talked in idiomatic riddles. She’d use them to confuse, chastise and constrain my younger brother and me. Life was confusing enough without adding to it. I internalized many of them, but understood few. Young boys have a strange learning curve.

I once had a friend, Jack, who went broke. I say “once” because he has now moved to an ethereal address. In order not to repeat his mistakes, he compiled a list of do’s and don’ts, memorized them and taped them to his desk. It was sorta like his Ten Commandments. Always wondered if adultery was on his list.

I didn’t need reminders. My mama had drummed wisdom into my head by different means. Suffering was the principal one. I list some of the contexts here in hopes they will resonate.

Our home had one bathroom. The lid was always up. Once, in the dead of night, a blood-chilling scream pierced the house’s silence. Mama had fallen in, if you know what I mean. Next thing I know she had me by the throat, “I’ve told you till I’m blue in the face about that lid,” shouting hysterically. “I’m fit to be tied.” My brother escaped the encounter, feigning a bout of bubonic plague.

Our back screen door was warped. I was bad about not closing it. Flies and gnats would slip in, and have a grand old time in the kitchen. “Fed up,” she said, “Son, a word to the wise…you’re skatin’ on thin ice.” Well, wise was not yet in my vocabulary, and in August where was the ice? Didn’t make sense.

My brother and I once climbed atop the convertible and fell through it. We instantly understood the mystery about thin ice. “Boys, I’m about to whip you within an inch of your lives.” We understood whip, like in beat, but not the inch part. Maybe the last half breath, but an inch? We understood better about inches when daddy got home and pulled off his belt….size 34.

Young boys learn good habits slowly. My mama was fond of saying, “Son, I’m giving you fair warning…I’m going to lay down the law to you.” Mama’s idea of fairness didn’t correlate with mine. It was less a warning than a threat. She seemed to know that a stout stick would drive the foolishness out of young boys. That was her law.

In today’s world Family and Children’s Services would have seriously reprimanded my parents for child abuse. In those days, had it been possible, my mama would have voluntarily called the Sheriff and had us relocated with a foster family. The phone system was handled by Polly, the operator. The whole town would have known about the child exploitation before nightfall. Party-line gossip, you know.

Another conundrum I faced was mama’s comments about daddy. “Your father’s working his fingers to the bone.” I would examine his fingers when he came home, but I never saw a finger bone. It always troubled me. She’d add, “Boys, you should be ashamed of yourselves.” Guilt and shame were atrophied emotions in boys. But pain and suffering? That’s another matter.

Often we’d “get up on the wrong side of the bed.” We could never figure how she knew the difference. Same was true of her favorite, “Son, you’re getting too big for your britches.” How? I hadn’t gained a pound in years.

We learned early that bad things happen “when we bit off more than we could chew.” Especially when she added, “Just wait till your father gets home.” The meaning of repentance became clear, “as plain as the nose on your face,” mama would say.

“Once in a blue moon” I’d be accused of “cutting my nose off to spite my face,” usually for silly nonsense. My nose did “get out of joint,” but I never once attempted surgery. Homework always prompted the comment, “It’s plain as the nose on your face,” while whispering to daddy, “That boy’s in over his head.”

She had many more, like, “having a heart to heart talk,” or, “get off your high horse” and “for the life of me.” Mostly she only listens now, having changed addresses herself about several years ago. She’d be proud that her wisdom lives on.

So, “if you know what’s good for you,” remember Mother’s Day is coming soon. Make your mama proud. They’ll be happy to see each of us all again and tell us to “wash your hands before supper!”

Bud Hearn
March 27, 2015