“POOLING PENNIES FOR PERFUME”

Proverbs 31:8 “Her children arise and call her blessed….”

Affordability and diversity. They were the determining factors in Mother’s Day gifts. However, the range in both categories were “slim and two.” In a family of nine children the weekly allowance consisted of three squares and a roof over our heads. Outlays of cash were few and far between!

When Mother’s Day arrived, the common procedure was a pooling of pennies and a request for Mom to drop us off at the local shopping center. For the next few hours we walked the sidewalks hoping to outdo last year’s purchase. After treks through jewelry stores, Penny’s, and Sears, inevitably, we wound up at Old Faithful--Woolworth’s.

The whole brood would wander the aisles hoping to stumble upon a treasure for less than five bucks, but each year the consensus would steer us back to the front counter for another gaze at our old standby. Our wallet and the front counter had two things in common, Prince Machiavelli or Evening In Paris. The toughest decision on those warm Saturdays was which incredible fragrance we would bless our mother with tomorrow.

We made our purchase right before Mom picked us up at the back entrance to Sears. As we hid our prize all the way home, we’d play twenty questions to see if she could guess what we had come up with. Although I think she knew all along that it was one of the two affordable fragrances we gave her every year, she never once said either of their names. She kept the surprise alive.

When we arrived home, we scurried to find wrapping paper (sometimes it was yesterday’s newspaper), wrapped it as best we could, then hid the purple bottle somewhere that Mom would never look.

The next morning before church, out came the gift and up went Mother’s praise. She splashed a little on, and out the door we flew. The whole way there we could smell Mom’s new fragrance and feel the joy of giving from a poor man’s wallet.

I don’t think they make those fragrances any longer, but I’m sure if they did, I would recognize them. That aroma would bring back warm visions of Mom’s loving acts. Homemade spaghetti and meatballs, chicken pot pie, warm hugs and encouraging words. You may not believe this, but the thought of Evening In Paris still makes me think of how much Mom loved me and the ways she proved it.

At 72 pounds in seventh grade, I probably wasn’t much of a threat to the competition. But in my mother’s eyes, I was an athlete. I didn’t look like one. My wrestling uniform was three sizes too big. The straps were gathered at my shoulders and held tight with athletic tape. We couldn’t afford real wrestling shoes, so my P.F. Flyers were secured tightly to my feet with more athletic tape. How I looked didn’t matter to Mom. She was my biggest fan. And she never missed.

It didn’t snow often in my hometown, but the day of my first official wrestling match we got whacked with several inches. There was some question as to whether our meet would be canceled, but the coaches and officials decided to stay on schedule. I knew Mom wouldn’t be able to attend because we only had one car, and Dad was out of town.

Adorned in my mummified uniform, I joined the team in the locker room to prepare for the pre-match rituals just before it was time to run out around the mat to warm up. Every ounce of adrenaline that could be produced by a 72-pound weakling was pumping through my veins. I was the first one out the door. Running full speed, I spied Mom out of the corner of my eye sitting in the second row of the bleachers. I remember seeing her rubber see-through boots (with the little elastic eye hook that held them tight to keep out the snow) still on her feet. Mom was here! As I peered her direction to make sure she could see me, suddenly, my feet hit the curled-up edge of a wrestling mat that had been in storage all winter. I went flying, which caused the rest of the team to cascade into a helpless heap. I was so embarrassed. That was the last day I went out of the locker room first.

My first match wasn’t exactly an Olympic performance. I lost 17-2 and got turned every which way but loose. But it didn’t seem to matter to Mom. She just wiggled through three periods of me fighting off my back, and walked back home smiling proudly.

I learned something valuable that day: “Whether I won or lost, it had no effect on how much my mother loved me!”

It wasn’t a stretch for me to give all I had for a purple bottle of perfume. A snow-soaked mother made it all worthwhile.