YOUR AROUND TOWN SPONSOR

Most all of us can remember how our mother would always have an answer for any question we would ask. As a child I often questioned her answers, but the older I got the more I realized how smart she really was.

I sometimes would miss school because of a cold, headache or some made up minor sickness. She could see through me like an open window. Usually I would start feeling better about the time school let out, and she would say, “If you’re too sick to go to school, you’re too sick to play outside.”

Here are some of my mother’s favorite sayings; I don’t care what “everyone” is doing. I care what YOU are doing! I’m doing this for your own good! I’m going to skin you alive! I’m not going to ask you again. If it were a snake, it would have bitten you. If you could stay out last night, you can get up this morning. Over my dead body! Pick that up before somebody trips on it and breaks their neck! Pick up your feet. Put that down! You don’t know where it’s been! Say that again and I’ll wash your mouth out with soap.

One of her funniest sayings was when she saw a person acting odd or wearing something outrageous was, “The sights you see when you haven’t got a gun.”

How may of these have you heard before?

A little soap & water never killed anybody. Always wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.

Answer me when I ask you a question.

Are you going out dressed like that?

Are your hands broken? Pick it up yourself! I’m not your maid.

Bored! How can you be bored? I was never bored at your age.

Clean up after yourself.

Cupcakes are NOT a breakfast food.

Did you clean your room?

Did you flush the toilet?

Do you live to annoy me?

Do you think this is a hotel? You can’t just come here only to sleep.

Don’t ask me WHY. The answer is NO.

Don’t cross your eyes or they’ll freeze that way.

Don’t EVER let me catch you doing that again!

Don’t make me come in there.

Don’t run with a lollipop in your mouth.

Don’t stay up too late.

Don’t use that tone with me.

Don’t you have anything better to do?

Go ask your father.

Go to your room and think about what you did. How can you have nothing to wear? Your closet is FULL of clothes.

How many times do I have to tell you? I can always tell when you’re lying.

My mother said a lot a lot of things, but the one that I remember the most is; “Never look down on anyone, unless it is to offer your hand to help them up.”

My mother had a way to keep me under control. When I was about six years old I went through a phase of flicking the lights in our house on and off continuously. This was in the early 40s during World War II, so Mom convinced me to stop by telling me that doing so would send a signal to the Germans to bomb our house. That did the trick.

A friend of mine a few cabins down from me on Moon Ridge in Blairsville, GA is an interesting person. One afternoon we engaged in a conversation about our mothers.

He said when he was a child his mother always turned the cold water tap on first thing each morning, and let it run for a minute or so. She said she did that to clear the pipes of the stale water from the night before. He said there were no copper pipes in those days, all lead, but she didn’t know that.

She also cleaned her carpets by sprinkling tea leaves all over them, then brushing the carpet with a stiff brush. He said it was years before she ever got a vacuum cleaner.

If he said he was hungry between meals she would give him a slice of bread and butter and a glass of water.

He smiled and looked up at the sky and said, “One day she came over to visit me, and as she was leaving it started to rain. I gave her my umbrella to walk home with. About a week later I stopped in to see her. I was surprised to see my umbrella wide open in her living room by the window. She told me that she had been waiting for a rainy day to bring it back to me, as she couldn’t get the cockeyed thing closed!

A guy shopping in a supermarket noticed a little old lady following him around. If he stopped, she stopped. Furthermore she kept staring at him. She finally overtook him at the checkout, and she turned to him and said, “I hope I haven’t made you feel ill at ease; it’s just that you look so much like my late son.” He answered, “That’s okay.” “I know it’s silly, but if you’d call out ‘Goodbye, Mom’ as I leave the store, it would make me feel so happy.”

She then went through the checkout ... and as she was on her way out of the store, the man called out, “Goodbye, Mother.” The little old lady waved and smiled back at him. Pleased that he had brought a little sunshine into someone’s day, he went to pay for his groceries. “That comes to $121.85,” said the clerk.

“How come so much? I only bought five items.” The clerk replied, “Yeah, but your Mother said you’d pay for her things, too.”

We all love our mothers. My mother taught me about STAMINA. “You’ll sit there until all that spinach is gone.”