{"id":1938,"date":"2021-05-10T20:29:40","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T01:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2021-05-10T20:29:40","modified_gmt":"2021-05-11T01:29:40","slug":"mothers-day-redux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/?p=1938","title":{"rendered":"Mother’s Day Redux"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Mother\u2019s Day is behind us.\u00a0 I never thought of writing about my mother, but I see that almost everyone I know posted a paragraph or two about their mothers on Facebook for Mother\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

My mother deserves more than a paragraph on a social media site.\u00a0 My mother was the best at everything she did, even if it was cussing, praising, protecting, criticizing, scolding, loving, embarrassing or any other attribute that might or might not be associated with raising seven children on her own.\u00a0 Our father passed away early in life from natural causes.\u00a0 He left mom with seven children; ages 15-years-old to two months old.<\/p>\n

I was her favorite.\u00a0 I was her favorite because I was going to be a priest.\u00a0 That was mom\u2019s automatic ticket to heaven.\u00a0 Then, I became a teenager and the ticket became nonrefundable.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure she was pissed.<\/p>\n

Rhea L. (Fritz) Ryan was a great cook.\u00a0 Receiving commodities weekly did not guarantee gourmet meals every night, but she was creative with what she had.\u00a0 Every day after school we were treated with something she whipped up during the day.\u00a0 For instance, Monday might be doughnuts; Tuesday \u2013 oatmeal cookies; Wednesday \u2013 peanut butter cookies; Thursday \u2013 homemade bread; Friday \u2013 may have been buttermilk brownies.\u00a0 There was always something.\u00a0 I realized at a later time that feeding us something sweet after school may have spoiled our appetite for dinner.\u00a0 In that way, mom didn\u2019t have to worry about making huge nightly dinners (or suppers, as we called them).<\/p>\n

Supper was at 5:30 pm.\u00a0 If you showed up at 5:35 and there was nothing left, it was your problem.\u00a0 Sunday noon we had fried chicken and potato salad on one Sunday followed by pot roast with mashed potatoes and carrots the next Sunday.\u00a0 After that, the rotation started all over.\u00a0 It was always appreciated, delicious and somehow, plentiful!<\/p>\n

We had a good-sized backyard and it had no trees, except on the south side \u2013 for a while (they were American Elm trees with Dutch Elm disease).\u00a0 Home plate was distinguishable from anything else in the yard.\u00a0 First base was the trunk of an old apple tree.\u00a0 Second base a smaller worn-down spot in the middle of the yard.\u00a0 Third base was the easternmost clothes line pole.\u00a0 One Good Friday, after being kicked off the altar boy team<\/a>, I built a regulation basketball hoop on the far eastern end of our backyard.\u00a0 I bought a fourteen-foot 4×4; nailed a few boards together and attached it to the 4×4; and hung a new hoop with netting on the backboard.\u00a0 I dug a hole and placed the constructed hoop assembly into the ground.\u00a0 I know I had help with the latter, but I don\u2019t remember who.<\/p>\n

So, between the baseball field and the basketball court, we had kids in our yard a lot.\u00a0 On occasion, mom would come home and walk into the backyard and yell \u201cwhat are all you kids doing here?\u00a0 Don\u2019t you have yards of your own?\u00a0 Get the hell out!\u00a0 Go home!\u201d\u00a0 It was sort of embarrassing, but what always seemed to happen next was ironic.<\/p>\n

\u201cMom, can we go to [insert the name of any other Vail kid\u2019s family here]?\u201d\u00a0 The answer was always, \u201cno!\u00a0 You have your own yard to play in.\u201d\u00a0 She didn\u2019t understand that with over forty kids in the neighborhood, and possibly another forty throughout the rest of town, playing with your brothers just didn\u2019t cut it.\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t want you hanging out with the wrong crowd,\u201d she would say.\u00a0 I constantly had to remind her that \u201cwe (the Ryan boys) were the wrong crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom\u2019s favorite cuss phrase was \u201cson-of-a-bitch\u201d (singular) or \u201csons-of-bitches\u201d (plural).\u00a0 However, my youngest brother swears that for the first ten years of his life he thought his name was \u201cyou no good dirty rotten sons of bitches.\u201d\u00a0 Now, Joe and I can make fun of this, but if anyone else would attempt to make fun of our mom for her unique language skills and embarrassing moments, we were ready to fight.<\/p>\n

There were several times in which mom would call me a son-of-a-bitch and I would ask, \u201cdo you listen to yourself?\u00a0 Do you understand what you just said?\u201d\u00a0 Irony was not a familiar word to mom, even though she watched Jeopardy every day.\u00a0 She would get pissed at me for giving the question before the contestants.\u00a0 I had to promise to shut up when we watched together.<\/p>\n

Rhea had a way of pronouncing things incorrectly.\u00a0 I had to explain to others that she had Norm Crosby<\/a> Syndrome.\u00a0 Irony: Mom couldn\u2019t relate.\u00a0 She loved Norm Crosby.\u00a0 She used to tell everyone that I worked for the UCLA.\u00a0 Hey, she got the letters correct; they were just in the wrong order.\u00a0 I wonder how many people think I probably pushed a broom at a major Southern California university.<\/p>\n

Mom provided us kids with many memorable moments, most of them unintentionally funny.\u00a0 She also provided us with love that was difficult to express in words, but overwhelming in support and pride.<\/p>\n

I love and miss my mom just as much as anyone else who posted on Facebook this week.\u00a0 Probably more.\u00a0 After all, she was the leader of the family who taught her kids by example how to fight for what they wanted. \u00a0She may have been one of the poorest women in town when it came to a financial position in the community, but she was the richest in talent \u2013 knowing how to stretch the simple into something abundant.<\/p>\n

When one of her children got into trouble, and someone would criticize or ostracize that child \u2013 especially a sibling, mom would always stand behind that child.\u00a0 I can\u2019t count how many times I heard her say, \u201cHe needs whatever I can do for him, because he\u2019s my son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mom did not have an easy life.\u00a0 When she was a teenager, her parents were divorced when she was a teenager in the 1930s.\u00a0 Unfortunately, divorce is not as big a stigma in today\u2019s world, but in the 1930s, yes, it was.\u00a0 But she survived, as did her four sisters.\u00a0 She learned to cook while working for her Aunt Fern, who owned a caf\u00e9 in Manning, Iowa.\u00a0 Mom never had a driver\u2019s license until she was well into her forties.\u00a0 As the last of her children left home, Mom began working as a breakfast cook at Cronk\u2019s Caf\u00e9 in Denison, and eventually became the cook at St. Ann\u2019s Grade School in Vail. \u00a0The students loved her, as she loved them.<\/p>\n

She was a single mom for years.\u00a0 She traded powered milk to a baker in Denison for cash, which she used to buy milk delivered to our door.\u00a0 She was a candy maker, and I don\u2019t recall that she used a thermometer to know when the candy reached the soft ball or hard ball stage.\u00a0 She knew by using the cold-water method.\u00a0 Her divinity was divine; her caramels helped me win a blue ribbon at the Iowa State Fair; she made the best potato salad.\u00a0 I am thankful for a wife who can replicate it \u2013 I can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I learned not to visit mom on Sundays.\u00a0 There was something about her that could lead me to take her to Bingo, or have the person with me take her.\u00a0 She would find a way home \u2013 possibly.\u00a0 If not, that Catholic guilt could make you stay.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t even born a Catholic.\u00a0 She became a convert to marry dad.\u00a0 And she became one of the best Catholics I have ever known.\u00a0 For much of her life, she attended Mass daily.\u00a0 Mom had her faults, but don\u2019t we all?<\/p>\n

There are so many stories to tell about mom that would make you laugh, but I don\u2019t want to give away comedic material that may be used by one of my siblings in a standup routine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mother\u2019s Day is behind us.\u00a0 I never thought of writing about my mother, but I see that almost everyone I know posted a paragraph or two about their mothers on Facebook for Mother\u2019s Day. My mother deserves more than a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[854,853],"class_list":["post-1938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-norm-crosby","tag-rhea-l-fritz-ryan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1941,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions\/1941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iowappa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}