More Marvelous Memories of Mom

Merle Vertes would have turned 89 this coming Wednesday. I’ve already written about her here and here, but as her November 12 birthday nears, the memories keep flooding back.

Even now, people who work at various businesses, from small specialty food stores to banks, still remember her as “delightful.” She was never in a hurry and always had a kind word for everyone.

She volunteered at the gift shop of the botanical garden, where I worked for a while, and it was wonderful to see her get out of the house and do her “job” every Thursday.

Those efforts were like an episode of I Love Lucy. The store manager tried to banish Mom and her friend Flo to the basement stockroom, but Mom was unstoppable. Eventually, the manager allowed her on the sales floor and acknowledged she was great with people but had no idea how to operate the register, even trying to scan barcodes with a computer mouse.

This unfamiliarity with technology extended to her attempts to access Facebook, where she wanted to keep an eye on her grandchildren. However, every time she forgot her email and password, she would create a new account to log in. By the time she died, there were several Facebook accounts in her name.

Mom’s attempts to economize were always amusing. She believed she was saving money, helping the environment, and getting a stylish car when she bought a PT Cruiser, which we nicknamed the “PT Loser.” I think she confused the PT Cruiser with a Mini Cooper, which is definitely not an economy car. When she realized her mistake, she traded in the PT Loser after two months for a BMW.

Never a do-it-yourselfer, when she moved into her new house in 1999, she hired a professional art installer to arrange the items on the family room's bookshelves.

Mom was also a bit of a fake reader. I’m not saying she didn’t love books, but if you mentioned any one—whether it was The Lovely Bones (which she did read) or War and Peace (which she definitely did not)—she would claim to have devoured it. When questioned about this and asked what a book we suspected she didn't read was about, she would say, “You know." Or "Ask Peter, I just can’t remember.”

Mom always wanted to know what I was reading. And eating. Early in our relationship, Joe was astonished by how much my family discussed food and eating. She broiled a mean steak and made the best chopped liver, but toward the end, subsisted on takeout, watermelon, and the ever-present hunks of Jarlsberg cheese in her fridge.

Once, while I was lying in the hospital with a staph infection, she brought me two giant wedges of Jarlsberg and a salami.

Mom was an original, neither politically correct nor progressive in any way. She detested Hillary Clinton. She once told her poor caretaker that she had a huge caboose and was blocking the television with it.

Her memory is a blessing, and I am reminded of that every time I visit the local market to pick up some Jarlsberg, forget my Facebook login, or see a PT Cruiser.

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