Mothers!!!

    My mother enjoyed all kinds of entertainment, from sports to theater to opera to orchestra to anything that was performed by top notch performers.  She loved the Phillies, I think Richie Ashburn was her favorite, and that's why she surprised both me and my father one day when she said that he had to get tickets for the A's/Yankees game.  The Phillies were and still are the National League team; the Philadelphia Athletics were the American League team.  My father, who never denied my mother anything, asked her why.  She told him that Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees was going to play the Athletics and she wanted to be sure that I got to see the greatest and best baseball player of the time.  In all honesty, all I remember was her excitement at going to this game, being at the game, and then talking about how great DiMaggio was.

     My mother also loved Marlon Brando and she took me to see him in the movie Viva Zapata.  I saw it recently on TV and realized why she liked Brando and wanted to see that movie.  We went to New York to see Pajama Game, David Wayne in Teahouse of the August Moon, the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, and when we toured the NBC studios she gently insisted that I sing a song for the closed circuit and brand new television sets that were scattered throughout the building.

     When it came to piano lessons, she rode with me on the bus to center city for lessons at the school that has now been incorporated into the University of the Arts.  My father used to pick us up when the lessons were over.  My mother never drove - a good thing.  Her sense of direction was greatly distorted and if she said that she was sure that we had to make a right turn, we knew to turn left.

     I had season tickets, through the high school, to the students' concerts at the Academy of Music and even though I felt I could touch the ceiling from the seats, the music made a lasting impression on me.  My parents attended every recital and concert in which I performed, starting when I was 4 years old and lasting through college.  They traveled wherever and whenever I played the piano, the flute, and/or the cello.  I took dance lessons, art lessons, and singing lessons.  Dancing was not my forte, neither was art when my watercolor pumpkins on a fence ran, and singing served me well in choruses.

     As a mother, I had my share of attending sporting events and concerts.  I even was asked to play football with my son and his friends when he was in high school - I did; and I played in the University orchestras when my children asked me to join them.

     And now, as a grandmother, I am enjoying as many of the entertainment venues that my darling grandchildren participate in,.