my mother – Lee Duigon

Memory Lane: My Mother & My Lizards

leeduigon(patty)July 27, 2018

Image result for images of pet anoles

It can’t be said my mother liked lizards. Not for all the tea in China would she have handled one. And as for insects, forget about it.

Nevertheless, when I had pet anoles as a boy (inaccurately sold as “chameleons,” because they can change color), my mother went out every day with a jar and patrolled our florabunda rose hedge, catching assorted bugs–spiders, leaf-hoppers, caterpillars–to feed the lizards. This I thought was pretty cool.

The instruction book said it would be a good idea to put a piece of cut banana in the terrarium. This would attract fruit flies for the lizards to catch. So my mother did that, too. We never saw any fruit flies, but the lizards would eat the banana.

Later, when I had my iguana, she used to prepare very nice salads for him. So did my wife, and so did my next-door neighbor when we moved into our apartment. He had a personality that made nice women want to feed him.

Ma, you really were cool! And I still miss you.

If they have lizards in Heaven, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t, I’ll bet she feeds them.

Iguana Has Breakfast… with Cat?

leeduigon(patty)June 11, 2016

Sorry, I couldn’t resist posting this. The iguana in this video looks so much like my iguana did when he was young. You can tell this is a young iguana by his build, by the still barely visible baby-stripes on his dewlap, and by the fact that none of the soft spines on his back have been worn off yet.

You can also tell that this is a good iguana who’s been raised right. He has learned not to be afraid of the cat; in fact, they’re probably friends. The cat has been taught good manners, too. You can see he’s just dying to play with that long, green tail–but he restrains himself.

My mother, my wife, and my neighbor all got into preparing very nice salads for my iguana. It’s very gratifying to feed someone who’s always glad to get it. Nor will I ever forget my mother going around the multiflorabunda rose hedge with a jar to catch bugs for my small lizards. Ma, those were good days!

To My Ma, on Mother’s Day

leeduigon(patty)May 8, 2016

You’re not here with us anymore, having moved to your mansion in our Father’s House; but there’s one thing I want to say to you that I never got around to saying while you were still present to hear it.

When I was a little boy, I was so proud of you for doing things that none of the other kids’ mothers, in our neighborhood, ever did–although they were as young as you were.

You rode a bike, helped teach me how to hit a softball, played chess and monopoly with kids and teenagers, played with us when we played volleyball on the street with Mrs. Thomas’ hedge for a net, and sometimes taught bunches of us kids how to play the games you played as a girl (“You may take three baby steps”–remember that one?). I could’ve burst my buttons, I thought it was so cool when you did all those things. I wish I’d thought to tell you so! But I’m afraid that was one of those things that children take for granted.

Nor do I forget how you watched U.N. meetings when they used to be on public TV, with me sitting with you on the sofa, and taught me all about the assorted world leaders and their countries, who they were and what they were trying to accomplish.

I think we both realized, after very many years, that if ever anybody was a chip off the old block, I was a chip off yours.

I would not be me if you had not been you.

P.S.–My wife wishes me to add that she and my mother were the best of friends: “And how many wives can say that about their mother-in-law?” It’s quite true, though. Nor will I ever forget my mother advising me, after she’d met Patty a few times, “Don’t you dare let that one get away!”