Mum...and mummer

Friend Stephen blogged the other day about interesting things that "mums" say -- and I was reminded of my favorite anecdote from my own "mum". When I was about age 15 or so (around 1962), my father decided to take a job in Pueblo, Colorado. While the rest of us stayed back east, my father went out to see if he would like the position -- and after a short time he was hooked on the west and came back to retrieve the family for the move. At some point I recall a discussion where my mother raised the key question: Which side of California is Colorado on? I have since learned -- as do we all -- that our parents are not as ignorant as we might have thought when we were teens. At 84 and having travelled many places since, my mother can give me a geography lesson or two (she is now saying she wants to take a cruise to Alaska for her 85th birthday...). But the memory of that question remains quite clear -- and I can only attribute it her status as a born and raised child of New York -- the New Yorker cartoonist Saul Steinberg had it right! Tags: Saul Steinberg, Colorado, Pueblo, Sociable Geek, Stephen McGrathy, mothers, New Yorker, accountabilitybloke, Mel Dubnick