Kitchen table

Mom taught me and my identical twin sister Jackie to read when we were four. I remember Mom sitting with us at our tiny kitchen table in the kitchen in our house in Montclair, California, a suburb about sixty miles from Los Angeles. She was probably wearing a house dress, her skin browner than usual from tanning that summer.

It was early of course, 7 am or so. Mom was always an early riser and passed it down to me by always waking us up early, To this day, no matter how hard I try, I can't sleep past six am.

We were set to start school that September. The era was the mid 1970s, a time of Ditto flared jeans which mom had already bought for us with her stash of waitressing tips. We would soon be attending Mariposa Elementary where they had two kindergarten classrooms so we could each have our own separate classroom and teacher, which Mom said was the ideal situation for twins.

Mom was determined that we would start kindergarten already knowing how to read. Mom had always valued education, and her mantra was that us twins were going to go to college. She would always say that she didn't want us to be a waitress like her. My mom was wicked smart, and a skilled reader.

Flash forward an unlucky thirteen years later and I would indeed be a waitress just like her after having thrown away my straight A report card and my dreams of Claremont McKenna down the drain. But back then, when we were kids, Mom was optimistic, and so most mornings, she sat with us and she tutored us in reading. She used Beverly Clearly books and eventually even her beloved, slightly salacious "True Story" magazine, which I learned to love as well.  

Our modest kitchen was small and painted a bright yellow like the summer sun in the sky. Covering the windows of the kitchen were scalloped curtains my mom had saved her tips to buy from Montgomery Ward's. They had lemons on them. 

Mom must have had a cup of coffee by her side. Sipping from it constantly like she always did. Much like how my dad always had a Budweiser in hand. 

Mom was probably bone tired those early Saturday mornings. She would have waitressed the night before, and gotten home late, close to midnight. Dad would have watched us while she worked the closing shift.

Dad usually got home by 5 pm on Fridays and was on time so Mom could be on time for her shift. He was slowly, but surely breaking his back and legs moving furniture at Mayflower moving company. Us kids loved Dad's big moving truck. It was green and yellow with a big ship painted on the side. When Dad drove the truck home, me and Jackie would chortle with delight and beg Dad to let us sit with him in the truck's front seat. Our little sister Annie would clap when one of us pulled the horn which made a loud oooga like noise which combined fittingly with the sound of Johnny Cash on the 8 track. 

My dad was a nurturing babysitter and father. As we got older, my memories of those Friday and Saturday nights when my mom had to work, would be filled to the brim with rummy card games and trips to the Drive In movie theater where we watched Star Trek and Richard Pryor movies. 

My mom taught us to read, but my dad taught us card games (canasta, big casino little casino and so on) and how to watch movies in silence until after they were over when we could finally discuss the merits of Superman 1 versus 2. Dad liked hanging out with us kids and was jolly, even after a long day of hard work. Maybe the Budweiser made it easier. 

Back to the kitchen table, in our light filled kitchen, Mom was patient, giving me and my wonder twin the ultimate gift. In moments like those at the kitchen table, when my mom was sweet, kind and encouraging, I saw my mom as a Carol, the mom on The Brady Bunch. I remember Mom whispering to me in a kind voice, "Cmon Jenny, sound the words out. You can do it, you're so smart." 

That first reading summer, Mom took her time with us at the table and it paid off. 

By four years of age, Jackie and I were reading Judy Blume. By seven, I was obsessed with my mom's collection of Harlequin romance novels, having read all the Wizard of Oz Books, the Little House on the Prairie series, Gone with the Wind (which my dad was gifted from someone cleaning out their library on a move), SE Hinton and Little Women. Then at ten or eleven, I found F. Scott Fitzgerald in the adult section of the Ontario library and never left the stacks.  

Later, I would squint into books while laying on our roof, a place that I escaped to when my mom and dad would argue. All my troubles would fade away as I lost myself in my books.

Perhaps Mom taught me to read so young because she knew, down deep inside, as both a keen reader herself, and a woman who knew exactly how hard life could be, that in my life, I would need books like most need air to breathe.