Page Title

Just West of Waconia on Hwy 5

952-442-5000

Sebenaler Chiropractic Center

Chaska * 952-448-9908

CORNERSTONE Insurance Agency

David Barsness * 952-448-5028

8661 Deer Run Dr. * Victoria

952-443-2351

MACKENTHUN’S MEAT & DELI

St. Bonifacius * 952-446-1234

To the Editor:

My mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs, and spread mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn’t seem to get food poisoning.

My mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter and I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice pack coolers, but I can’t remember getting e.coli.

My mom used to take us swimming in the lake instead of a pristine pool (talk about boring). And there were no beach enclosures then or lifeguards.

My mom used a phone attached to the wall, not a cell phone, which conjures up a phone in a jail cell, and the school PA system was a pager.

My mom made us take gym, not PE, and we risked permanent injury with a pair of high-top Keds (only worn in the gym) instead of having cross-training athletic shoes with air cushion soles and built-in light reflectors. I can’t recall any injuries but they must have happened because they tell us how much safer we are now.

My mom said that flunking gym was not an option for anybody, not even for stupid kids. I guess PE must be much harder than gym.

My mom thought it was a good thing that we all said prayers and sang the national anthem at school, but she did not like me staying in detention after school.

My mom told us we could tell who the school nurse was because she wore a white dress and a white hat and everything. What an archaic health system we had then!

My mom said we were supposed to accomplish something before we were allowed to be proud of ourselves.

My mom didn’t allow us to be bored and we didn’t even have computers, Play Station, Ninetendo, X-box, or 270 digital TV cable stations. If we ever said we were bored, we were put to work immediately.

My mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome when we got hurt playing King Of The Hill on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and then we got our butt spanked too. She never called an attorney to sue the contractor for leaving a horribly vicious pile of gravel where it was such a threat.

My mom also spanked our butt when we acted up at the neighbor’s house and then we got spanked again when we got home.

My mom never said that our family or anybody else’s family was dysfunctional but she used a lot of other words that probably aren’t even in the dictionary.

My mom didn’t go to group therapy or anger management classes when she got mad at us for misbehaving.

My mom told us that life’s most simple pleasures are very often the best. My mom was the best.

submitted by Margene Claeys

Ghent, Minnesota

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