My Mom Recommends These Cheap Asbestos Word Puzzles from the Discount Store

My mom grew up in Santa Rosa during the Great Depression, the daughter of a traveling salesman. She spent summers picking peaches and plums.

When the money dried up, they moved to the City. My grandfather opened a business machines shop on Mission Street and worked 20 hours a day to keep it afloat.

She graduated from Balboa High School in 1952 and got a job as an assistant at Pacific Telesis, working out of their famous 140 New Montgomery building (now Yelp HQ). After she and my dad were married and she got pregnant, the only option was to quit that job (which she loved). Working while pregnant was not an option back then.

Over the years she worked a number of full and part time jobs, supplementing my dad’s teachers salary — while raising four kids — including:

Yard duty at my school, where she called me out at dodgeball, the opposite of special treatment;

Clerk at Sears. I wore the dragon, not the alligator;

Temp at employment agency Kelly Girls, where she picked up clerical work.

A supervisor once told her she had a very loud voice, which hurt her feelings. I hope that supervisor found peace in a quieter place, like a raging inferno for a period of eternity.

Unlike the rest of us, my mom didn’t get seasick on that rolling deep sea fishing boat off Bodega Bay in 1994. In one hand she held my poor puking father by the scruff of his neck, in the other hand, a burger.

We deemed her The Bulldog, a nickname that stuck.

For years my mom’s hair thinned, then she decided to do something about it in her 60s. A wig was acquired and that was that. She seemed to stop aging around then although she also survived breast cancer and a double mastectomy along the way.

We lost my Dad and then a few years later my sister, Maureen. I can’t even imagine the pain of losing a child. My mom has emerged battered, beaten but still standing.

On Tuesday nights she goes to Happy Hour with her granddaughter Mary, Maureen’s daughter, my niece. They laugh and sometimes cry. Those two spending so much time together would make my sister happy.

In 1976 my mom used all her powers to convince my Dad that we would move from our small house in foggy Daly City to a big house they could barely afford in San Mateo. He didn’t like change. But she would not be denied.

A couple of months ago she sold that house to a young Silicon Valley couple for a large sum of money. She now lives at a classy retirement community that is way more five star hotel than rest home.

If life has taught my mom anything it is that you always need to be prepared for whatever is coming down the line, good or bad. It’s about taking the cards that are dealt to you and playing them to the best of your ability.

With her wisdom and ability to overcome adversity, I’m positive she could have been an executive. But that’s OK because she exercises her good judgement and leadership outside of the boardroom.

She convinced me to buy those cheap word puzzles rather than more expensive holiday gift fodder. Her power of persuasion and nose for a bargain remain formidable as she prepares to kick ass for the eighty sixth consecutive year.