The past two weeks I've been listening to The History Chicks Podcast, starting back at the beginning of their series. Two women, talking about women who have changed not only lives, but the fabric of culture that would ripple through time to how we live out lives today. Many of these women are incredibly interesting and much of their lives took a backseat to their husbands'. Here we are in the 21st century, and women's voices are starting to speak more loudly than men's. So I want to write about women who inspire me. It's very obvious which of the women featured on this podcast inspired me the most--but I don't want to start with.
I've been inspired by many women in my life, particularly my own mother. She instilled in me a love for cooking and baking and always making the kitchen the most welcome place in our home. Only for a year of my life did my mom not have what's referred to as a "breakfast bar" in her kitchen, which was during her brief second marriage. This means there was always a big broad counter, jutting out from the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Two stools or high chairs would sit on the dining room side, which allowed her to talk and see what my younger brother and I were doing. And in our two later houses, gave her and me a broad workspace for cookery, bakery, and crafty projects. The kitchen was always warm, and also smelled good (except when a potato had gone funky in the basket). The fridge was always stocked, the kitchen always clean, the dishes always washed and put away. My mom could be a bit of a neat freak (okay, a major neat freak).
She did all of this while being single for most of my 31 1/2 years. And by single, I mean unmarried. Sure, she had boyfriends--but that's not the same as being married with two incomes in your household. So I'll start with a little back story.
My mom was born in 1961 at the very tail-end of the baby boom. Her parents were young and obviously in love, having been married only six month before. Her mother worked as a typist/order clerk for the Swiss Colony before my mom was born, and then because a homemaker. Her father was a teacher of art at a local high school. He ran in high school and college, and subsequently started the cross country team at one of the high schools he worked at, and later coached several teams at other schools to state competitions in track and field, cross-country, and tennis.
The oldest of three siblings, my mom was the only girl. Her mother cooked and taught her to cook and bake. When she turned 18 she was surprised and hurt that her parents attitude was not that of the women's lib movement--but that it was time for her to move out, find a husband, and have kids. Meanwhile, they were preparing to pay for her two younger brothers' college tuition. In high school, she had worked as a fry cook at Burger King, and a "mashed potato slinger" at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Graduation high school in 1979, she had landed a job at the brand new indoor shopping mall in the moderately sized, blue-collar city she grew up in. The JCPenney Department Store had moved it's location from downtown Main Street to the shiny new mall and my mom worked in the jewelry department. Much of that first year after high school was spent trying to figure out what she was going to do while saving up money to do whatever that was. She met a man a few years older than she, working in the auto department. They would go out drinking with coworkers after work and got to know each other. Finally, he admitted that he planned on joining the Army National Guard like his father, who was a blue collar factory worker that had served during the Berlin Crisis. Also, so that they could help him pay for college as Penney's and his side gig as a real estate agent weren't quite bringing home the bread.
And so my mom thought, "What the heck else am I doing?" And went and enlisted with him. They went to basic training together in 1980, and then moved in together in Madison, WI while he went to UW-Madison to attempt a degree in Journalism in order to earn his commission as an officer. While he went to the top school, she tried night school while working full-time until they decided to get married in 1982.
And that's how mom met dad.
