happy meal

The rounds of Christmas holiday parties left me satiated with food, and by nightfall all I really needed was a coffee fix.  My usual hangouts were closed, so I threw on my comfortable sweatshirt and sauntered down to the local Mc Donald’s. The place was pretty empty, just a family with several adult children gathered around a large table and myself.

Through the door came a young boy of maybe seven years old with his parents. He had bright blue eyes and hair so blonde it was nearly white. He was wearing a navy blue dress suit- probably his first, with brown sneakers. He walked up to the counter and ordered a Happy Meal while his parents watched. While waiting for his order, his Mom disappeared into to the ladies’ room and his Dad took him aside and told him, “I just want you to know that you were really good today and I’m very proud of you.” The little boy broke into a wide smile, picked up his Happy Meal at the counter and the three of them scampered out the door. I’m betting he’ll remember this Christmas for a very long time.

I’m still sipping my coffee as the family at the big table start to head for the exit. The father, who is probably in his late 60s struggled with the zipper on his winter coat. One of his daughters, a pretty young woman with flowing black hair, knelt down in front of him and very lovingly zipped up his jacket. No doubt he did the same thing for her hundreds of times over the years, but tonight the roles were reversed.

I tossed out my coffee cup and walked out to the car, smiling.

My Christmas gifts came late in the day.

patriot act

Reposted from January 2008. Merry Christmas, Mom



I can't watch "I Love Lucy" anymore. It reminds me too much of her. The same strong will, the sheer determination. Nothing stood between Lucy and her crazy scheme. They were so much alike.

Like the time with the cookies. It was Christmastime 1990 and thanks to a Bush in the White House, we were building up to a war- Desert Shield, it was called at that time. Mom was seeing TV reports of all the troops away from home for the holiday and she wanted to do something nice for them. Somewhere she stumbled across a cookie recipe that was approved by the Marine Corps. It contained no processed sugar, instead it used fruit juice for sweetener. She baked a trial batch and declared it "not bad". She decided that instead of holiday cookies for the family, she would forego that this year and bake cookies for the troops instead.

I admit I encouraged her, I thought it was a cute little project that would give her something fun to do. I guessed she would make ten dozen, maybe twenty at the outset. It would give her something to talk about to the card club.

The cookies seemed to take a long time to bake. Every day it seemed she was mixing dough, or had a batch in the oven. Mother always thought big, I began to wonder exactly how many cookies she planned to bake. But it was her gig, I didn't interfere.

Finally the cookies were ready to ship. At that point I asked her point blank how many she had made. "Eleven Hundred" she said somewhat sheepishly. ""Eleven Hundred Cookies?" I asked. ""No" came her reply. "Eleven Hundred Dozen".

Eleven Hundred Dozen. Eleven Hundred DOZEN. She baked Thirteen Thousand Two Hundred cookies to send to the desert to feed to troops that she would never meet. She spent more than a month on the project. The Marines had to send four trucks to pick them all up. She received a Commendation from the Marine Corps Commander.

I told this story at the time to a client who chuckled and said, "Your Mother is quite a patriot". Yes, she was. And she was quite a Mom.