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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate NEWS NOW Guest Opinion: Plaza fencing is ugly and wasteful ... Herb Rothschild Jr.: Require national service ... Wolf once believed to be dead shows up near Crater Lake ... Guest Opinion: Plaza fencing is ugly and wasteful ... Herb Rothschild Jr.: Require national service ... Wolf once believed to be dead shows up near Crater Lake ... Mark Hopkins: Celebrating Mother's Day Comment By Mark Hopkins More Content Now DailyTidings.com By Mark Hopkins More Content Now Posted May. 4, 2015 at 8:31 AM By Mark Hopkins More Content Now Posted May. 4, 2015 at 8:31 AM » Social News Today, I’m writing about my Mother so you will think about yours. Harry Caray, the old baseball announcer for the Cardinals and Cubs used to say when someone took a big swing at the ball and missed, “Well, he didn’t get cheated on that one.” Mother had a very eventful life and, believe me, never got cheated on living it. She grew up in the roaring ’20s, married and birthed her children during the years of the Great Depression. Like most of that generation, she learned to be self-sufficient. She could pluck a chicken whose neck she had just rung and cook a family dinner for 20+ people and put every dish on the table piping hot. Her father taught her to drive in his brand-new Ford touring car in 1923 when she was 13. She learned to drive anything, a car, truck, or tractor be it manual shift, automatic, or 4 on the floor. Mother was the first of her family to go to college in those years when a woman could only become a nurse, secretary or a teacher. She chose the latter and taught music, history and mathematics, among her many assignments but her great love was teaching English, which she did for almost 40 years. She could direct a choir or a play, could teach poetry, Shakespeare, or how to diagram a sentence. Yes, I know you have to be a certain vintage just to know what I’m talking about with diagramming sentences. When she retired from teaching school, she continued to teach her Sunday school class, which she did for close to four decades. Mother was a staunch Republican and became so when the Democrats repealed prohibition in 1932. She read two newspapers each day, took Time and Newsweek magazines, and watched CNN on a regular basis. She loved a good discussion and if you weren’t pretty knowledgeable about current politics, you could expect to get your ears pinned back. Mother loved watching Fox News, Lawrence Welk, and the Atlanta Braves on TV. However, her greatest joy was to hear from one of her former students and to remember again all of the good times she experienced in her younger years when she was teaching high school students the poems of Longfellow or the plays of Shakespeare. On any week day morning you could find her at the Anderson Mall pushing her walker from Penney’s to Belk’s exchanging greetings with her many mall walking friends. She started walking when she retired from teaching in the early 70s. She always said that if she had strung all that walking together she would be somewhere west of Albuquerque by now. Who could ask for more than a life well lived? Harry Caray would have been impressed. Mother has been gone for many years now. But, mothers are never really gone, are they? Dr. Mark L. Hopkins writes for More Content Now and Scripps Newspapers. He is past president of colleges and universities in four states and currently serves as executive director of a higher-education consulting service. Hopkins’ latest book, “Journey to Gettysburg,” is now available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. Contact him at [email protected]. By Mark Hopkins More Content Now DailyTidings.com By Mark Hopkins More Content Now Posted May. 4, 2015 at 8:31 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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