What's A Happy Mother's Day?

May 11th, 2008 at 10:52pm Mitch Mulhall 171

My mom was born in a tent (some accounts I’ve heard say it was a cabin) near Estes Park, Colorado on an August night in 1936. My grandfather was a laborer during what must have been the construction of Trail Ridge Road from the Alpine Visitor Center to Grand Lake. It is one of the cruel realities of surviving your elders that you come up with questions you can never have answered.

When I was a much younger man, in that netherworld between high school and life, I went to work in the coal mines. Yes, back in the day, there were coal mines, and some of them were in Pitkin County. But I digress.

During those summers I worked at the mines, my mom got up every single day at 4:30 a.m. to make my breakfast and pack my lunch. Not just any breakfast, and not just any lunch. Eggs, sausage, biscuits, pancakes, I never left the house hungry. Moreover, I was packing a lunch box laden with a thermos of Lipton lemon & sugar iced tea, a sandwich of varied lunch meats and cheeses, usually on a rye bread, chips, fruit, and a tin of smoked oysters or clams, a plastic fork to eat them with, and, of course, a napkin, which, under the circumstances, was about the most useless part of the lunch.

Understand I could have slept ‘til noon on any summer day, but I was on site, ready to work at 7:00 am Monday through Friday, from the day I got home from College until the day I returned…

The guys on my crew envied me my lunches, not merely for the extent of my noontime repast, but because they knew I wasn't packing my own lunch, and the person who was cared. Some razzed me about this, but only briefly. It wasn’t long before a steady diet of peanut butter and a bag-o-lays made their taste buds weep when I opened my lunchbox.

In retrospect, my mother’s warm breakfasts and generous lunches during my days at Mid-Continent taught me constancy. I carry on this virtue by trying to find ways to support the academic and athletic development of my children. I've tried coaching and teaching with varied success, but on balance I think I've managed to carry on a little of what she started.

God bless you mom…

Love,

Entry Filed under: Glenwood Springs, Family, Pitkin County, Garfield County, Women, The West, United Post