paulmuses

But it’s not easy to fool a mother’s nature

I wrote this story several years ago. It is my favorite reflection on my mother. I’ve continued to update and rework it, as a loving and dutiful son would. Happy Mother’s Day, 2026.

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Lying has always been hard for me. And, as difficult as it is to admit from the vantage point of 76, I was a bit of a mother’s boy. So, lying to my mother came at the cost of round-the-clock guilt. But, hey, I was building a self.

Grass

How do I start my story with “I remembered the sharp scent of freshly cut grass as I waited at the dining room window for Sharon,” when the only photo of my childhood home is this one I took five years after my mother died and 58 years after the events I will describe?

You’ll have to imagine a lawn full of grass. It’s almost impossible, I know, given this replacement monstrosity. My story is about the sin of lying. What do you call this trespass?

I wanted you to see the first-floor dining room window on the right, my second-floor bedroom window on the left, the outdoor steps, and the brick street. And smell the grass I had just mowed before Sharon showed up.

I was the oldest of three sons, so mowing the front lawn was my first outdoor chore. At 13, my dad taught me an up-and-down system using a long piece of cloth rope tied around the mower handle to serve as a pulley.

The first time I tried it alone, while Dad was at work, the rope slipped under the mower and was shredded. So, I put my Pony League baseball cleats on and pushed the green Lawn-Boy across the lawn without the machine and me rolling into the street.

My first teenage triumph. The second would come three years later.

Sharon

It was an early spring day, and, as you know, the smell of grass was in the air. I was 16, and Sharon and I had just started dating.

I opened the first-floor dining room window on the right to smell my accomplishment, listened for the soft rumble of Sharon’s pale aqua-blue car on the brick, and turned toward my mother.

My brother Peter and I shared a bedroom behind the second-floor dormer window on the left. When I was younger, my dad was often away on business trips. I had the bed closest to the window. On warm nights, I would open it to hear the sound of his car on the brick street as it turned into the driveway. Then, I would fall asleep knowing my dad was safely home and my mom would be at peace until his next trip.

“You can’t get serious about her, you know,” my mother says from the kitchen across the Sunday pot roast dining room table after I told her I was waiting for Sharon.

Sharon was Jewish and the daughter of my Baskin Robbin’s boss, Wendell. We were Catholic. By “we,” I mean everyone but my dad, who was raised Protestant. My mom would have said the same thing if Sharon had been Presbyterian.

I knew this story. Before they married in 1948, Mom talked my dad into going through the Rite of Christian Initiation for adults to prepare for conversion to Catholicism. Dad gave it a try but was treated so poorly by the priest that he eventually said, “No more, not ever again.”

Even at 16, I knew the religious difference was a source of tension between them. When Mom said to me, “You can’t get serious,” I knew she was serious.

Lying

Hearing the honk and saying nothing, I leave my mother and walk out the front door and down the steps.

Sharon and I dated for two years. That was the last time she picked me up in front of my house. And the last time I told my parents what I was up to.

A few months later, we started Saturday night drive-in dates. Fortunately, by the mid-1960s, my family had two cars: a mid-size sedan and a small Fiat. The Fiat had bucket seats, so I needed the Pontiac.

My usual line was “I’m picking up Jerry, Ed, Pat, and Mike, and we’re hanging out.”

Riding in that same car to Sunday mass burdened me with guilt and fear about whether there was any evidence of my deception.

It was all so easy.

Too easy, as it turns out.

It was an early evening at Duck Creek Park’s Little League Diamond #1. My little brother Pat is playing, and my parents are sitting in the bleacher section behind home plate. My dad, in his Fiat, met us at the game. I needed the sedan for a date. I’m sitting next to my mom.

“Can I have the car?”

“Where are you going?”

“Over to Jerry Spaeth’s.”

She turned her head, looked directly at me, and said quietly,

“Paul, I know exactly what you’re doing. Don’t think I don’t.”

Mothers and sons

Dody Gardner died in 2017 at 96. At the lunch after her funeral, I met one of her long-time friends. I knew John Bishop from the bridge parties my parents hosted. John, a physician and lifelong bridge player, told me my mom was the finest player he knew.

During lunch, I asked a few of Mom’s younger friends, all bridge players, about this, and they nodded. “No one was better,” Peg said.

Even as Mom was sinking into dementia, she continued snapping down cards in triumph or disgust while playing solitaire.

Good bridge players think strategically. Mom knew my personality, that I could not rebel directly. I needed to lie to grow up. To separate myself from her and my dad. She was confident I would discard the disreputable means when I no longer needed them.

That’s precisely what happened.

The skilful bridge player had won the trick.

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“Why don’t you write a book?” came the voice loud and clear. In a hectoring tone, it continued, “You’ve written more than 800 Medium stories in three years, that’s Moby Dick. Why don’t you pile the pages on top of each other instead of scattering them here and there?”

When you hear a voice, in the silence of 4 AM, is it your mother’s? Dody Gardner, smart as a whip, with a tongue to match, an English major who earned her degree in 1940, didn’t even read books except to her three boys as they were growing up.

But when her spirit tugs, I listen and engage.

“Mom, I’ve thought about this. My writing life is a kind of managed ADHD, the many instead of the few. I write about this, that, and the other because I’m interested in so many things.”

“Shallow instead of deep?”

“Precise instead of wordy.”

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I am an average golfer and photographer, at best. But magic is possible, if rare, for the less-than-talented. Rarer still is a pairing of perfect shots. 

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Sixty years ago, in high school, I was number four out of the six who played matches on a mediocre varsity golf team. That said, I know the game and, occasionally, hit a shot that would not embarrass me if Arnie, Tiger, or Rory were looking on. A few days ago, I hit a drive for the ages, or at least for aging duffers like me. Back to that in a moment.

My iPhone counts 11,941 photos, with 100s more deleted. On the golf practice range, if you repeat a flawed swing, your strokes don’t improve. Quantity might not improve quality. 

Because the same must be true for photography, I took a three-day beginner’s course a few years ago. I retained a couple of ideas: each photo should tell a story, and the rule of thirds, which means breaking an image into three segments vertically and horizontally. 

For example, in the first photo, I wanted the bottom half of the picture, the tee area where the first shot, a drive, occurs, to be the most prominent. The middle segment, the light-green fairway, bends right toward the green where the hole is located. The horizon includes the tops of the trees, indicating the right-to-left direction of the wind.

I took the photo before I teed off, with my golfer’s imagination seeing precisely the flight I wanted my tee shot to follow. Start the ball to the right over the two pine trees and let the 21 MPH wind bring it back into the fairway. Which is exactly what happened. 

I hope, at this point in the story, you perceive me as a reliable narrator. 

Here is a rough diagram of the flight path of my ball, which landed about 220 yards from the senior tee, leaving an 80-yard pitch shot to the green.

Of course, I flubbed that shot, ending up with a bogey, one over par, on the hole. 

But I’m proud of this photo and my tee shot. 

In this world that humbles us even in our games and hobbies, we need to pat ourselves on the back occasionally. Besides, that movement of the arms, elbows, and shoulders toward the posterior is also the perfect stretching exercise for the golf swing.

I understand, dear reader, that neither my links nor camera actions are perfect in any objective sense. However, my comparisons are with myself, not with others. That’s one of the niceties of old age.

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A long time ago, I realized the people in charge are no smarter than the rest of us.

My little town in northeast Iowa has a seven-intersection shopping area with a signal light at each crossing that commands go (green), slow (yellow), and stop (red), with walk and don’t walk for pedestrians. Two weeks ago, they decided to change to a continuous flashing red light.

Here’s my letter to our local newspaper about this change.

Cancel Decorah’s Flashing Red Light District

I live on Water Street, a few blocks east of downtown, so I walk and drive it several times every day. Yesterday, 5% calmer than usual after my new 15-minute meditation routine, I got in my car to get a Snickers tornado at Whippy Dip.

On the way back, I crept up to the intersection of Mechanic and Water, second in line for take-off. The eastbound car in front of me had its left turn signal on, as did the westbound car across the intersection, with a chorus of three pedestrians waiting off stage.

No one knew what to do, precisely the opposite sensation you want when driving, walking, or biking.

I thought about snatching my Tornado or checking my phone to calm my nerves, but as a law-abiding Iowan for 76 years and a newly minted meditator, I cleared my mind and recalled the hands-free law passed by our state legislature, rightly concerned about Iowans’ health.

When I pulled into my driveway, I was 10% more unsettled than usual.

Paul Gardner

TO MY PAULMUSES.COM READERS–THANK YOU. TODAY, I TRANSFERRED MANY STORIES THAT HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED ON MEDIUM TO THIS BLOG SITE. TOO MANY, SO IF YOU ARE READING THEM IN ORDER I APPRECIATE YOUR PATIENCE AND PERSISTENCE.

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I love living in a hoof-friendly community, following in the striding footsteps of my mother, who marched three miles a day until she was 90.

A hip replacement slowed her down to a stroll until, at 94, she forgot who she was and what she liked to do.

“Moving at a regular pace” was the last of her habits to fade away, after coffee and ice cream, just like Glen Campbell’s songs stayed with him longer than the cities he was performing in, as shown in the poignant documentary “I’ll Be Me,” about how he and his family managed his Alzheimer’s during his last tour.

Yesterday, I made the mistake of prematurely stepping off the curb onto this crosswalk before realizing I’m not in Florida anymore.

Of course, the closest car slowed to a stop to accommodate a pedestrian. I’ve given up waving these altruistic strangers on. Now I give them a thumbs-up and hope the cars behind are paying attention.

Two weeks ago, I spent six days in Winter Haven, Florida, taking care of my late brother Peter’s estate. This community sits between Tampa and Orlando. Below is one of the sidewalks across from my hotel, which I hiked down each day. In that week, I saw one other pedestrian. And no bikers.

As I walked through intersections, watching the timer count down from 20 seconds, I felt like a stranger in a strange land; this feeling of alienation was heightened by the darkened windshields, which are illegal in my state of Iowa.

Sadly, at the end of each daily walk, I felt more, not less, anxious. Ironically, the people I met in the hotel and restaurants, at my brother’s church and assisted living facility, in bookstores and coffee shops, were all, without exception, friendly.

For me, walking is a therapy session. My couch is Palisades Park, about a mile from our house. This is the waiting room.

Occasionally, we’ll have a group session.

As you can tell from the incline, it’s not for the faint of heart. But the personal insights sometimes take my breath away, particularly when I’m helped to gain perspective and take the long view.

However, my guides always tell me at the end of each session, “Be careful out there, and take it one step at a time.

Life is a series of unexpected twists.”

Last night, meaning three hours ago, because I checked our upside-down clock light projector, I dreamt of writing a story of 150 words. It was only a snippet of an image, but it stuck. You know how that is, sometimes night memories linger upon waking, and sometimes not.

When I fell back to sleep, another vision prodded, of our French coffee thingies. Below is the real assembly line.

The first photo is today’s finished product.

It is now 6:14 AM, and I’ve been writing for over two hours. I’ve yet to check the New York Times or The Economist, so that’s a sign my writing muse is in the house.

On the lap desk, in a red Moleskine notebook propped under my right arm next to my MacBook, is an open page listing dates for photos I will use in two writing projects, neither of which was this one.

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A few years ago, I fell into the daily habit of walking around a local forested park a few blocks from our house.

Yesterday, on the way to Palisades, I took the first picture and thought, what came first, the root or the sidewalk?

You’ll notice a fenced playground across the street. It used to be the parking lot for a funeral home that is now a Montessori School.

The genius of recycling.

When I entered the park, I was primed to discover other examples of survival. Isn’t this old timer magnificent?

And these guys don’t give up.

Five years ago, Rebecca and I built a back porch that required a new sidewalk, so we moved the birch tree you see in the middle of the photo below from its birthplace along the sidewalk path. We carefully dug under the root ball to give the tree a good chance of surviving. We needn’t have worried.

Both of us remember the first Earth Day in 1970, Joni Mitchell’s environmental anthem, “The Big Yellow Taxi,” and her admonition not to cover more of the earth with concrete.

Well, we sinned.

That’s one reason we have planted 10 trees on our property and why my daily walk through a forest is penance, pleasure, and enlightenment.

Trees can get through the most challenging environments.

That’s a lesson worth pondering for other living things.

Happy Earth Day.

Louis Armstrong’s Its a Wonderful World

I’ve loved Louis Armstrong’s version of It’s a Wonderful World since I first heard it in 1967.

Please take two minutes to listen.

What do you think? How does it make you feel?

The song was written by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele as a salve for the horrors of the Vietnam War. (source)

But it’s timeless and universal.

Armstrong’s life, as a Black man in America, and his role in the American civil rights movement give the words additional power and depth.

Yesterday, I found it on Spotify for my running errands soundtrack. As I turned onto our street, we passed the familiar entrance to our town’s cemetery, just as the sun was dying, and Louis was repeating verse three.

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow

They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world

Oh Yeah!

If you’re a writer, I’m guessing you have peaks and valleys, periods when it seems easy to do the work and intervals of stasis.

When in the midst of the former, everything seems right with the world. About the times of stoppage, a feeling of panic seeps in, as in, will I ever write again?

Last week, I was traveling to take care of a family matter, so I did not write for six days, April 7 through April 12. This journey, to Florida from my home in Iowa, was to begin my responsibility as the executor of my late brother Peter’s estate and to attend his and his wife, Pamela’s, funeral and inurnment. Pete died in January, and Pam last September.

Every day, I met kind and generous people who had cared for them, including the hospice nurses who had been with my brother the moment he drew his last breath.

Early each morning, during my typical writing time, I instead sat in the motel’s breakfast room, readying myself for the day by observing and occasionally talking with the other patrons. I was mostly content to be and not do.

Today, thinking back and writing about this time, I wonder why peaks seem more natural than valleys and thus less to be feared.

Stasis is defined as an equilibrium of forces, which, for an animal, produces a state of rest. An example is a bear hibernating during the winter. (source)

The melancholy of mourning produces a torpor that respects the unspoken feelings of loss, until they can be acknowledged.

The view, from down here, is nothing to fear.

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Dear Buddha,

You’ve never been more popular. There’s even a book, Why Buddhism is True, that touts your wisdom, such as the emphasis on living in the moment.

I’m creeping toward your 80, finding it easier to slow down and smell the roses.

But before flowers bloom in late spring, while I’m out walking, I take your advice and pay close attention to one thing, with no distraction. The little sticks in my ears, each with a foam rubber end, block out everything but the speaker’s words.

Allowing me to listen, as I’m sure your followers did, to the talker with a single-minded attention to the moment.

Mindfulness is truly a gift that keeps on giving.

With objects of focus that help clear one’s mind of all the intrusive chatter that clutters one’s thinking, making life harder than it needs to be.

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