RaisingDad

I was getting rid of some of our mother's things today.      I thought my buddy Maloney's mother-in-law could have the old rocking chair pop bought mom a long time ago, but it was in too poor a condition for even Maloney's mother to have.      I also went through a bag of a bunch of religious cards. Cards from funerals and St. Jude asking our mother for money and giving her cheap jewelry in return. Actually, it was my three-year-old granddaughter and I who went through it, and, like I thought, it was a bunch of trash.       My granddaughter kept some of it.      She’d go, “This was grandma’s and now it’s mine?” Which was her way of asking, “Can I have this?”      “Yes,” I’d tell her. “That was grandma’s and now it’s yours.”      Some colorful rosary beads. A bracelet made up of little wooden squares with picture...

The recent funerals of Aretha Franklin and John "Wet-Start" McCain (an old fighter pilot nickname of his) reminded me of how my father has become rather fond of attending them.      It gives him something to do, he gets to socialize with friends and family he hasn't seen in awhile, and the food is usually good.      At one recent funeral, the food was especially good. Instead of a pot luck where everybody brought something, they family of the deceased had it catered. I noticed that my father went back time after time for seconds, thirds, and even fourths.      "You're going back again? " I asked him, when he got up for a fifth time.      "Why not?" he asked me back.      "People will start to think you eat like a pig," I told him.      "They won't," he told me back.      "Why won't they?"      "Because I've been...

as featured in Desert Exposure Magazine desertexposure.com   My wife's a great cook.     In fact, she's such a great cook she can even make English food taste good, and any food you have to put vinegar on to improve the flavor of, well, let's just say you'd have to admit that it would be a challenge. She makes everything from scratch, and doesn’t mind spending hours in the kitchen preparing a delectable feast for those she loves.     I include myself in that group.     One time, my beloved mother, when she was still alive and my wife wasn't around, asked me who the better cook was.     I was diplomatic, but honest.     “Mom,” I told her, “when it comes to cooking Mexican food, you're the best, but my wife's the better cook when it comes to cooking different kinds of food.”     Since Mexican food is all my mother ever made, she was happy ...