Stories With Babs

Time with my mom is easy and comfortable. We play cards or games, watch movies or Monk, walk around the neighborhood. But what I really love is when she tells me stories. Stories of her childhood, her teen years, nursing school, when my brothers were young; I love them all.

Yesterday she felt up to going for a drive, so we headed over to a state park we love by her house. I have my own memories of school field trips and taking Monkey and Buster here when they were little. Mom talked about how much she enjoyed walking on the paths all over the park, though she would sometimes get lost. (I must get my sense of direction from her.)

Then she suggested we go see my Aunt, but she wasn't home, so we headed to Mom's cousins' house. (Small town benefit; one relative isn't home, another will be.)

As we drove there, Babs reminisced.

"Did I tell you about the time I got in trouble for drinking at a bar when I was in nursing school?"

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I managed to mumble, "Umm, no."

"A group of us decided to try out this bar in Independence. I was doing my psych rotation at a psych hospital there. We took a taxi over there and ordered a round of beers. When we were ready to go, the waiter brought over our bill and I asked him if I could have a copy of it."

"Why?" he asked.

"For my scrapbook," my honest, naive, sweet 19 y.o. mother. (Legal drinking age at this time was 21.)

"Why?! Aren't you of age?!"

You can imagine how well that went over.

We had a chuckle over that story, then she said, "I wonder where my nursing school scrapbooks are?"

"Probably in the basement," I said.

"I hope not. I taped a cyanide capsule in one of them."

And there's the plot for a future murder mystery.