My Mother The Activist.

This is actually a picture of me and my mother circa 1964. It’s one of the last remaining photos of my childhood since the “great cellar flood” of 2001. Once you get over the shock of her hair and sunglasses you will see the one thing that sums up my mother perfectly: attitude. Look at her. She looks like a lioness scanning the jungle for any threat to her cub.
She doesn’t, and has never had, any editing system between her mind and mouth. Whatever comes into her mind comes out immediately. This has led to many hilarious, surreal, and humiliating situations throughout the years. It would take a book the size of the Kink James Bible to tell you of all of these, so I just share this one.
Whenever my mom and I talk on the phone, which is at least twice a day, I eventually go into a political tirade. She always says the same thing, “Mike, I don’t understand any of this”. To this I always reply, “I don’t care, just listen “. When I’m done I’ll always ask her, “Now do you understand?” “No”, has always been the answer. Apparently she was wrong.
Late last night she called me and my partner and begged us to take her to a 24 hour Pathmark. Somehow she ran out of every ounce of food in her house overnight. This is some sort of reverse miracle, because we had just taken her food shopping the day before. But as she explained her best friend and her husband came over and ate her out of house and home. As she was telling me this I was visualizing her forcing food down their throats, and preparing the platter to go. There is always a platter to go.
Being the master of implied guilt that she is we quickly found ourselves in a very long check out line at Pathmark. The first thing that came out of her mouth was, “Hey, don’t you know how to count?” to someone one in the express line. This sent my partner right out of the line and over to the magazine section.
It is important to note here that my mother absolutely loves my partner, whose name is also Michael. She liked most of my boyfriends, but nothing like this. She actually makes her call her “mom”. And the feeling is mutual. I have given great thought to this special bond between them. The only thing I can think of is that when they are both exited they completely butcher the English language. My mother only spoke Italian till she went to school. And Mike only spoke Polish till he was about fourteen. Plus my mother picked up some Polish from a friend of hers. This might not be the answer, but it the only thing I can think of.
So there was my mother and me waiting in line. Mike is reading within feet away. Two older women in front of us start talking about the “glory” of George W. Bush. Seeing my face getting redder by the second my Mom said to me, "Now Mike, keep your mouth shut. Respect your elders.” Then one of them said, “Now all those Democrats are going to let gay people get married. It’s disgraceful”. Huge mistake.
Poking the woman in the back, my mother said, “Hey you. The one with the cheap ass wig, you are disgraceful. Not the gay people” The women turned around, looked my mom up and down, and then turn away. Another huge mistake.
This time she was screaming, “Look at me when I talk to you. Both of you, you rude bitches.” This time they both turned around. They both had an expression of combined anger and fear. “Look at this person next to me. What do you see? One of them managed to mumble out, “Well he seems like a very nice young man. Why?’
“Because he my son and he’s gay.” Instant mortification. Now I’m not the least embarrassed about being gay, but I never actually shouted the fact in public. I have lived here all my life, I just assume everyone knows it. And to top it off, the acoustics of the place made her sound like she was speaking thru a megaphone at a baseball game. So “and he’s gay” sounded like. And, and, and, he’s, he’s, he’s, gay, gay, gay,”
I looked at Mike for help. By now he was holding the magazine up to his face, with only his eyes peeking out. He looked exactly like spy you would see in a comedy movie.” And you see that man over there?”, she shouted pointing at Mike, “that is his boyfriend. Before my son met him he was a drunk. A fall down, obnoxious, hopeless drunk. ( instant modification times ten). Now he’s sober and happy. And your president Bush would like to make that illegal. That idiot would like to make my son’s happiness illegal. I hate the frigging pig. I hate him!”
What followed next can only be described as senior citizens night at Crossfire. Every eye in the place was on us. I wish I can remember every single word, but I really was,and still am,in shock. What I can’t help but remember was that my mom was tossing out names and words like “ habitant corpernateuas”,“Ken Mailman” and “Russ Limpbald”(perhaps the most unintentionally funniest thing I’ve ever heard). Mike remembered everything and told me she beat down every point they brought up right to ground. And not with her anger, but with real facts. When I asked him what facts, he replied, “You name it”.
When he wakes up tomorrow, I will demand a full type written transcript.
The ride home was pretty quite. I told her I was proud of her .Then Mike said, “Yeah mom, what the hell got into you”. She sighed and said, “I really don’t know. Maybe it was the beer I had with supper”
Tomorrow I’m buying her a keg.

BTW, this picture really doesn’t do her justice. She was really a beautifully young woman. She still looks great. As we were going through the pictures after the cellar was flooded, she picked up this picture and said, “Of all the picture to make it, it had to be this one”. Then she angrily “frisbeed” it clear into the kitchen. I don’t know. I love it.