You see, my mother was ALL ABOUT wheat bread, when wheat
bread wasn’t cool – she was about that life!
She was into vitamins, herbs,
whole grains, lean proteins, and carrot juice way before it was trendy. She used to send us on school field trips with sandwiches
on bread that was sure to be ridiculed – she used that hearty bread, not the
cute wheat bread they sell now. On a Friday
night she just might bust out the juicer and we would all get carrot or apple
juice “wasted”. And naturally, Abdul’s
children didn’t eat no pork, so we always had the cheese pizza at parties, a turkey
sandwich instead of ham, chicken salad instead of tuna, or BEEF bologna for
lunch. And, the brown rice we ate with dinner seemed so different than the white
rice we had at school, at restaurants, or with relatives. I used to dream of white rice!!!
Of course as kids we couldn’t appreciate what she was trying
to do back then. She had to endure all our protests
and pleas. It wasn’t really that we didn’t like it – well, we did really hate the Buckwheat Pancakes - we protested mostly because it made us feel
different. As kids, all we wanted was to be like
everyone else. We couldn’t wait to start
our own lives and buy our own groceries.
But lo and behold --- wouldn’t you
know it --- now you can’t escape it! You can’t watch television without seeing
commercials for products that boast about Whole Grains. School lunches offer turkey sausage for
breakfast instead of pork now. Odwalla,
Naked, and others are killing the game with their fruit smoothies and vegetable
blends that you can buy right in the grocery store. A few friends and I were just talking at a kid’s
birthday party about which brand of juicer is best. And brown rice . . . . it’s
so popular now, Uncle Ben’s even has an instant (not sure if that’s an
oxymoron, though) .
Really Mom, you were ahead of your time.So Mom, this Mother’s Day I raise my glass of carrot juice to you! For all the wheat bread, brown rice, carrot juice, Tiger’s Milk candy bars, Carob cakes, and herbal teas, thank you!!!
So now tell me, what did your Mom do when you were growing up that you didn’t
appreciate until you were an adult (or a parent)? What are you doing now that
your kids can’t appreciate yet? Moms Rock!!! Happy Mother’s Day!!!
Dedicated to my mom, Delores Daniel a.k.a. Lois, Memphis Dawn, LoLo, Dee, Mama D, Grandma Lores! Happy Mother's Day!!