8 minute read
Erma Bombeck remembering mothers
from 5-14-20 Edition
by The Villager
Mother’s Day is history, but their tasks continue onward. There is little rest for mothers, whether a coronavirus pandemic exists or not. The meals must be served and the laundry washed. Having the kids’ home from school 24/7 adds some new challenges to home life. We’ll celebrate Father’s Day in June but that’s a different responsibility.
Several decades ago, Erma Bombeck was a speaker at the Colorado Press Association Convention, and I became a lifelong fan of her writings. Last week a Wyoming publisher friend Bill Sniffin reprinted a Bombeck masterpiece that he described this way, “Famous humorist Erma Bombeck wrote one of the finest pieces about mothers that I ever read, and I want to reprint it.”
Since this event is so recent and her humor is so good here’s Erma’s take on mothers.
When God Created Mothers By Erma Bombeck
When the Lord was creating mothers and way into the sixth day of overtime, an angel appeared and said:
And the Lord said:
The angel shook its head, “Six pairs of hands? No way.
“That’s on the standard model?” the angel asked?
The Lord nodded and said:
The angel bent over and ran a finger across the cheek: “There’s a leak!”
"It's not a leak," said the Lord.
"It's a tear."
"What's it for?"
"It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness and pride."
"Youre a genius," the angel said.
The Lord looked somber, "I didn't put it there."
Ramblin' around the corral with Bob Sweeney
Several stores opened for business last Saturday and my wife and daughter Susan were out for the afternoon, Susan looking for a present for Mother’s Day. No restaurants open indoors, so we’re having an outdoor pizza patio party hosted by daughter Sharon. Outside, sitting six feet apart, and not hugging mother. I hope that you were able to have some personal contact with your mothers, somewhere, somehow.
My mother spent two years reading the entire Bible to my brother and myself by a coal stove and a kerosene lamp. I was just a little tyke, but I loved all of the old testament stories. Bless my mother and yours!
***
I’m intrigued by the recent flap in Congress between Ken Buck and Ira Brenner the senate district 10th chairman in Colorado Springs. Another Áap about some internal shufÁing of alternate delegates from Weld County to the recent state assembly. It is a normal party procedure to move up alternates when delegates bow out for various reasons. This year’s assembly was done digitally with few major statewide races. There were a large number of folks running to be delegated to the Republican National Convention still set for Charleston in August. Randy Corporon, a local attorney, and 710 radio host was elected National GOP committeeman. This is an important position and thrust the committeeman onto the state and national stage. Remember Jim Nicholson of Cherry Hills Village who became state chairman, national chair, and named Ambassador to the Holy See in Rome by President Bush. He now lives in Virginia, practices law, and returns to Colorado to serve on the Daniels Fund.
The Denver Post political reporter seems to be interested in slamming Congressman Buck, who also serves as State GOP chairman. Buck followed a vote of over 200 members of the state central committee to vote foul over Brenner’s vacancy election.
Randy Corporon took to a printed column in the Saturday Denver Post to explain Buck’s role in the bruhaha over Brenner’s alleged misdeeds, not chairman Bucks, who was just following a central committee vote to put a second candidate on the primary ballot.
Our own Arapahoe County State Representative District 38, Susan Beckman ran for state chair and lost to Buck, but was recently appointed to a political leadership position by President Trump. She was replaced by Columbine may or Richard Champion who will run for re-election in November.
It is not a good idea to have elected officials serving in dual capacities, such as Ken Buck serving in Congress and also state GOP chairman. These latest bickerings among party leaders is a good example of why not to serve in public office and hold a major party role.
Read Randy’s column on page 15 for a better understanding of the facts.
***
We’re reprinting a Memorial Day piece this week in honor of our departed colleague writing a column a week before his death. Mort Marks was a Silver Star recipient from the Battle of the Bulge. In Mort’s memory:
In Flanders Fields By John McCrae In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns be low, We are the Dead. Loved and were
Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields. Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from falling hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, through pop pies grow
In Flanders fields.
***
John McCrae was a Canadian soldier and physician and wit nessed the )irst :orld :ar firsthand in 1915. He was inspired to write the now famous poem. He saw the poppies scattered throughout the battlefield sur rounding his artillery position in Belgium.
In 1918 days before the end of the war, an American professor named Moina Michael wrote her own poem, We Shall Keep the Faith, which was inspired by McCrae’s In Flanders Fields. She mentions wearing the “poppy red” to honor the dead that led to the tradition of adorning one’s clothing with a single red poppy to remember those killed in the “Great War.” Moina herself came to be known and honored as “The Poppy Lady.” Here is her short poem:
We Shall Keep the Faith By Moina Michael And now the Torch and Poppy Red We wear in honor of our dead. Fear not that ye have died for naught: We’ll teach the lesson that ye wrought In Flanders Fields.
***
In 1971, Memorial Day be came a national holiday by an act of Congress and is now celebrated on the last Monday in May.
***
Memorial Day — A Time to Remember Those Who Fought for Us
Even before the Civil War ended, many women in the South began placing flowers on soldiers graves – both Confederate and Union. What began with fresh-cut flowers has now become a living tradition.
Their thoughtfulness and generosity were so inspirational that the same heartfelt sentiment soon swept our Country and became our Country’s national tradition of “Memorial Day.”
On the first official National Memorial in 1868, General James A. Garfield, speaking at Arlington National Cemetery said, “If silence is ever golden, it must be here beside the graves of 15,000 men whose lives were more significant than speech and whose death was a poem, the music of which can never be sung."
Since then the meaning of Memorial Day has grown, and it is not preserved by cold marble markers, but by living spirit. It has become a time for remembering all the men and women who gave up their lives in all of our Country’s wars.
A day to remember that from France’s Flanders Field to the Pacific Ocean, from Korea and Vietnam, from Mississippi to Colorado’s Fort Logan, there lie more than a million dead Americans who fought to preserve our “Way of Life.”
I can still remember the day when I visited the tomb of the “Unknown Soldier” and walked past the graves of other fallen soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery, which was one special Memorial Day for me so many years ago.
I remember finding myself surrounded by both active duty service men and women, veterans in their uniforms, and civilians – all there to show their respect for those who had paid the supreme price while serving their Country.
All of us veterans present at Arlington that day made it very clear that we’d never forget our comrades who were not as lucky as we to have escaped the bullets of our enemies. We who had served under fire knew that the only difference between ourselves and our fallen comrades was only a fraction of an inch or a second of time because when guns are firing whether a soldier lives or dies is no more certain than the roll of the dice.
