The Mother Of '72
She met us at the Red Owl grocery store that night in 1972 like every Tuesday night after work for her weekly food shopping venture. She never showed it, but she must have had just a little dread seeing two or three of us boys waiting there for her to ride on the front of her cart, annoyingly so, or to beg her to get the expensive sugared cereals because they had the best prizes inside. She smiles and says, "Hello Jimmers, Pauly Wally, and Reuben," her nicknames for each of us boys. Paul rides on the front of the cart facing Mom while Rob and I tag along and give advice when Mom asks what kind of cookies to get. "Get the Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Pinwheels, please?" we plead. "No, those are always gone on the first day, then you have nothing. Pick out two other kinds," she says. Mom is on a tight budget and more often she shops for bulk rather than taste. With six kids, many of them teenagers, trips to the store mean a cart piled high and, on som...