Because I miss my mom so much, I had lots of mixed feelings on Mother’s Day. 

My wife, Lyn, and I reside in the house that my mom and dad had built in the late 1950s. It’s special for me to recall Mom standing at the kitchen window and eating her lunch. She would take a short break from what she was doing to make a small sandwich and then slowly eat it and watch whatever she could see out the window.

The kitchen was modernized a few years ago, and the large appliances were replaced. Some of the old pots and toaster are still used often. I remember Mom telling me that our toaster was a wedding present to her and Dad when they married.

During the time when I was a young boy, Mom had yet learned to drive. We walked to the bus stop at Madison Avenue and Morgan Drive and the suburban took us Downtown to go shopping.

When mom started learning to drive, she would practice in our driveway, during which time I was instructed to stay far away. A few years after she obtained her license, I was walking down Madison and saw her coming. I waved as she passed, but she was concentrating on the road and didn’t see me.

I have always remembered that and made special effort to help new drivers understand how to keep their eyes moving when we had the driving school in Broad Ripple and worked with new school bus drivers. 

Mom was a member of a sorority for many years. I was visiting former Southport High School classmate Shirley Zimmer the other day. Our moms were in the sorority. Shirley and I reminisced about some of the club’s parties and trips. One of the other members – Mrs. Goss – was a longtime friend of Mom’s. I remember going to her house and playing with her children.

It was cool that years later the Goss family purchased the house next to us. The memories start to flow when I occasionally see one of the Goss boys. The trees that either my dad or Mr. Goss planted in our yards are now big and beautiful.

After my sister, Kathy, got older, Mom got a job at a card shop in The Greenwood Mall. It was lots of fun to stop in and see her.

In Mom’s later years she downsized and moved to Crestwood Village. Several months after moving in she approached the manager and asked if anyone in her building liked to have fun. As the manager explained this to me, I recalled that Mom had hosted neighborhood “happy hours” a couple of times a week for several years.

Mom was soon hooked up with three or four other ladies, and they started having fun. Mom was the only one who still had a license and a car. They got around quite a bit ... so I often told them to “behave.”

My graduating class at Southport High School class is a close group, but we got off to a slow start when it came to reunions. Our first one didn’t take place until we had been out of school for about 12 years. We were shooting for a 10-year gathering but it took a bit more time to put things together. What did we know; we had never organized one.

We had so much fun at our first one that we learned how to keep them on schedule and fun. Our reunions that end in zero (40th and 50th) draw more classmates from distances. Sue Thompson-Zajac and Donald Hadley reside in Alaska. A large group lives in Florida. 

For the past few years we have scheduled yearly get-togethers,  usually a Friday evening and then a picnic on Saturday. 

A few years ago we started a monthly breakfast and a lunch. The breakfast is the last Wednesday of the month at The Hotcakes Emporium on Bluff Road near Southport Road. It is mostly attended by men from my class, but it is open to anyone who went to Southport. 

A few months ago a fellow carrying a yearbook from our class walked into the restaurant. He introduced himself as Louis Jones. He and his wife, Bonnie, had just moved to Indianapolis from California. It was wonderful to get reacquainted with Louis again.

The luncheon is mostly attended by ladies from our graduating class, and it is held at a different site each month. Donna Emmons-LaFollett and Barbara Wilson-Cooke reside near the Ohio River. Sometimes the lunch is near their backyards. I’m not exactly sure how I got invited to join this group. 

In honor of May and the festivities associated with the Indianapolis 500, our May lunch was held at the 1911 Grill and Speedway Indoor Karting, which is owned by Sarah Fisher and her husband, Andy O’Gara. 

As we were enjoying our lunch, we noticed Sarah Fisher was walking around the restaurant and visiting with some of the customers. A few minutes later I looked up to see Sarah walking toward our table. She thanked us for visiting and visited with our group.
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I told her a bit about the program that the Perry Township/Southport Historical Society put together a few years ago: “Perry Township’s Contribution to the Indy 500.” We had tried to contact Sarah to get her involved, but she was still very involved in racing; our program didn’t fit into her schedule.

I told her about some of the folks who were honored at the program. She didn’t know that Howdy Wilcox and Joe Langley were township residents when they were involved with the Indy 500.

My wife, Lyn, and I really enjoyed ourselves Saturday at the Perry Cultural Festival at the Baxter YMCA. 

My good friend Leo Canfield first told me about the event a couple of months ago. He has become acquainted with the Tapalot Native American Fellowship and members of the Miami Nation of Indians in Peru, Ind.

There were plenty of presentations, and the entertainers were as diverse as their wonderful presentations. Mary Bryan and Lincoln elementary schools staged musical presentations, and there were dancers from the Chin and Indian communities and a session on zumba.

There was a presentation that featured folks from different cultures wearing their native attire. Each person explained what they were wearing and the history of the culture. The final lady who spoke was from India and attended Brown County High School.

After that presentation was over I found her at a display table. I explained to her that I was a friend of her school system’s superintendent, Dr. Laura Hammack, who had been an assistant superintendent at Beech Grove Schools for several years. 

There was an interesting group of American Indians who set up a large drum and started playing it while dancing and singing native songs. There were also a couple of dancers dressed in their native regalia. Spectators were invited to join them, but since nobody seemed interested, Lyn and I leapt into action. Soon about 12 more people joined in the fun.  

A few times I thought I heard someone calling my name, but I never saw anyone looking in my direction. I was later introduced to a Shawnee master storyteller; I can’t remember his Indian name but his legal name is Fred Shaw. I was hearing folks shouting at him from across the room and thought they were hollering Fred Shonk.

As soon as Lyn and I returned home we hunted up our bucket lists and added dancing around Indian drummers and singing native chants. We then waited a bit before ceremoniously scratching them off our lists.

It’s a special day when a bucket list item is scratched.