Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, May 13, 2023

13

OPINION

Mountain Views-News Saturday, May 13, 2023 

MOUNTAIN 
VIEWS

NEWS

PUBLISHER/ EDITOR

Susan Henderson

PASADENA CITY 
EDITOR

Dean Lee 

PRODUCTION

SALES

Patricia Colonello

626-355-2737 

626-818-2698

WEBMASTER

John Aveny 

DISTRIBUTION

Peter Lamendola

CONTRIBUTORS

Stuart Tolchin 

Audrey Swanson

Meghan Malooley

Mary Lou Caldwell

Kevin McGuire

Chris Leclerc

Dinah Chong Watkins

Howard Hays

Paul Carpenter

Kim Clymer-Kelley

Christopher Nyerges

Peter Dills 

Rich Johnson

Lori Ann Harris

Rev. James Snyder

Katie Hopkins

Deanne Davis

Despina Arouzman

Jeff Brown

Marc Garlett

Keely Toten

Dan Golden

Rebecca Wright

Hail Hamilton

Joan Schmidt

LaQuetta Shamblee

STUART TOLCHIN

RICH JOHNSON NOW THAT’S RICH

PUT THE LIGHTS ON


MOTHER’S DAY 2023

Well, here we are again…Mother’s Day. Mother's Day is only 
one day long! A travesty. Mothers deserve at least a month. 
There is a reason Mother’s Day is limited to 24 hours. If mothers 
were taken off the job for longer than 24 hours civilization 
would collapse.

Read the second chapter of Genesis, You will see God can 
make mistakes: BIG mistakes. You see Adam was the first 
creature God created with a free will. Adam could make his own decisions. God 
quickly learned man needed adult supervision. And not another guy. They’d probably 
just become drinking buddies. So God created woman. And we all know who 
ruled the roost. Who called the shots. Yep, without women, civilization was done for 
before it got off the ground.

Enter Mothers! Their sacrifice to society is unparalleled. Men come in a distant 
second. Maybe third behind our faithful canine friends. Young mothers have one 
primary function and goal: “Keep the tiny humans alive!” (Dad, you are a distant 
second…maybe third)

Who’s the superior of every species…and more dangerous, Male or Female? Try 
coming between a mama bear and her cub. You’ll find out. Go bother dad. It’s safer.

Man would say to the woman: “I wrestled a bear.” The woman would say, “Cool. I 
removed a splinter from a two year-old’s finger. Wanna trade? I didn’t think so.”

“If at first you don’t succeed, try doing it the way your mom told you to do it from 
the start?”

“Mom’s learn having a second child is like riding a bike…except the bike has no 
brakes, it is speeding down a hill, and the tires are on fire.”

“Motherhood is putting the same 7 objects away 30 times a day.”

“The quickest way for a parent to get a child’s attention is to sit down and look 
comfortable.”

“Mom’s will tell you the dinner menu consists of two choice: Take it or leave it.”

Actress Reese Witherspoon said about motherhood: "I always say, 'If you aren't yelling 
at your kids, you're not spending enough time with them.”

A mother will tell you: "You know your life has changed when... going to the grocery 
store by yourself is a vacation."

Mothers will tell you with the force of conviction: "People who say they sleep like a 
baby usually don't have one."

My humorist friend Malcolm Kushner told me: "There are three ways to get something 
done: do it yourself, hire someone to do it, or ask your kids not to do it."

Humorist Calvin Trillin tells us: “The most remarkable thing about my mother is 
that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal 
has never been found.”

Someone named “Anonymous” (who has penned thousands of quotes) said: “You 
never realize how weird you are until you have a kid that acts just like you.”

On a serious note a couple of truly meaningful and true quotes:

"There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it." Chinese Proverb

And one quote I know from personal experience. "You will always be your child's 
favorite toy."

Moms (and Dads) I hope you are remembered by your children as their favorite toy. 
It is the greatest compliment you can receive.

IT'S A BATTLE

 Already I’m losing! Last week I wrote about my 
continual need for validation. Reciting my birthday 
number allows me to feel as if I really have accomplished 
something. In fact many of my closest friends have already 
passed 79 and I have started looking up names in 
the obituary section. I know that doesn’t sound so great 
but there is something validating about my survival although I really can’t 
take much credit for it happening. it just happened.

 I sent a copy of last week’s article to this lady I met at a restaurant 
on Monday. She replied by Email telling me “the most secure validation is 
inside, in our own hearts. That is the well-spring of unconditional love and 
acceptance. It’s never too late to start the journey inward.” Those are nice 
words but how do I do it? Besides being “unconditionally accepting” (those 
words are a bit much) relating to my age how do I start the journey inward? 
About 15 years ago, when I first began writing these articles and having 
them published, I sent one to a female lawyer who I didn’t know very well, 
but when I next saw her, her only comment was “go deeper”. Well I have 
tried! All my articles are honest; I am not trying to impress anybody but 
myself and I do experience satisfaction, but we all know that this is not the 
satisfaction, the deep experience of myself that I am looking for.

 Another friend, a couple of weeks ago asked about my objectives. 
We met on the golf course and I was playing my usual terrible golf often losing 
balls and not keeping score. My friend asked me what I was doing and I 
just laughed and said I was having a good time just hitting the balls, and being 
outside breathing the oxygen, talking to a friend, and enjoying looking 
at the sky. I could tell that this explanation was unacceptable to my friend 
who wanted to know what was my actual “objective”. He, and most other 
people I meet on the course, keep score religiously, always hunt for lost balls, 
and their satisfaction is invariably linked with how well they play.

 Surprisingly, I have taken his direction seriously. A couple of mornings 
later pursuant to my Doctor’s suggestion that I do a lot of walking on 
flat ground, I found myself strolling around looking at the plants, flowers, 
and trees at the nearby Arboretum. I thought of my friend’s direction that 
rather than just wandering around through life it would be a proper objective 
to learn a little something and be more able to appreciate my surroundings. 
I spoke to some volunteers at the Arboretum and I have become 
a Volunteer with a badge and everything. I went to the first three hour 
Orientation meeting last Thursday and was absolutely amazed at how much 
knowledge everyone seemed to have about growing cycles and plant predators 
and all kinds of horticultural knowledge. What also amazed me was 
how little information people had about the history of the adjacent area. I 
mentioned that we were right across the way from Santa Anita and someone 
said that they had heard that the Racetrack had been used as a kind of prison 
during World War II. None of the Volunteers knew about the Japanese internment 
in the stalls of the Racetrack. Also no one knew much about the 
indigenous people who had inhabited the area for thousands of years and 
what their culture was like. 

Importantly, I have volunteered to make a presentation at the general meeting 
of all staff and volunteers and I plan to put together my own syllabus. I 
am very excited about this opportunity and it has given me a clear objective. 
Tomorrow I will talk to the Director of Volunteers about the details of my 
presentation which I hope will be part of my newly begun “inward journey”.

 Another objective I hope to reach after a little editing is to stay within 
my word limit. If achieved this will be a personal validation notwithstanding 
the merits of the article. 

Mountain Views News 
has been adjudicated as 
a newspaper of General 
Circulation for the County 
of Los Angeles in Court 
Case number GS004724: 
for the City of Sierra 
Madre; in Court Case 
GS005940 and for the 
City of Monrovia in Court 
Case No. GS006989 and 
is published every Saturday 
at 80 W. Sierra Madre 
Blvd., No. 327, Sierra 
Madre, California, 91024. 
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Mountain Views News

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TOM PURCELL

A GOOD DAY TO CELEBRATE AN EXTRAORDINARY MOTHER

She was only 18 when 
rheumatic fever damaged 
her heart.

The doctors said she’d be 
lucky to live into her 40s 
— that she was no longer 
strong enough to bear 
children.

Lucky for my five sisters 
and me, she ignored 
them!

When we were babies in her womb she never took 
so much as an aspirin for a headache. She never 
put anything into her body but the nutrients that 
would help us flourish.

As a child, my world was rock solid because of her. 
Her devotion filled me with an incredible sense of 
security that is with me still.

She loved us without condition. I was so unaware 
of the fear and pain less fortunate children suffer 
that I wouldn’t know for years that such concepts 
existed.

She was extraordinarily moral. I still can’t tell a 
fib, thanks to her, and I even blush when I’m innocent 
and people think I’m fibbing.

The only thing she hated more than dishonesty 
was phoniness. She made sure we were, above all, 
authentic — a task made easier for us because our 
father was one of the most authentic men on the 
planet.

She prized graciousness and friendliness. She 
taught us to treat everyone the way we wanted to 
be treated.

She is still full of incredible 
compassion and understanding. 
The phone 
still rings constantly at her 
apartment, people calling 
for consolation, reassurance 
or just to be cheered up on a 
down day.

She taught us to enjoy the 
little things. The smell of a 
flower could send her into 
fits. The silliness of a child 
could make her laugh for 
days.

Laughter was one of her 
most important lessons. We 
laughed constantly growing 
up, and I was drawn to 
friends who all have an incredible 
sense of humor. Nobody makes me laugh 
harder than my family and my friends.

Yet the laughter is not so common now that she 
lost her husband of 66 years last August.

That big authentic man left a massive void that 
can never be filled. My mother struggles with this 
loss every moment of every day — struggles to be 
cheerful, happy and hopeful, her natural state for 
all the years I have known her.

When others look at my mother and father, they 
probably see good, ordinary people who were 
blessed with a nice family, a long marriage and 
good health for most of their lives.

When I examine my mother’s and father’s lives 
and marriage, I see two ordinary people who have 
lived extraordinary lives.

They lived extraordinarily right. They were the 
good citizens, good neighbors and decent, generous, 
hardworking people who are the heart of all 
great civilizations.

Their legacy is the six children, 17 grandchildren 
and 10 great grandchildren — the most recent, 
Mia, joining us just a few weeks ago — who are all 
good citizens, or will be, and who are all out in the 
world doing good deeds.

I know my mother will be reunited with my father 
in time, but I pray that in the here and now she 
may enjoy easily again the sweet smell of flowers 
and laugh out loud at the silliness of a child.

It is all I wish for this extraordinary human being 
who I am incredibly blessed to have as my mother.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom!


Mountain Views News

Mission Statement

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concerns of our readers 
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Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com