My Mom, Betty Jean. What a Hoot!

My mom was a great lady. She was a wonderful Christian and really fun. She had a great sense of humor, a great heart and all us kids adored her.

Mom was well loved by everyone in her little town. I found that out when I was in Hinkley taking care of her once when she was sick. I think every person in the town called to see how she was doing. They all told me how wonderful she was and all the things she had done for them. I had always thought my mom was special, but I learned just how special she was that week.

Mom was gone before I wrote my books, but I know she would have loved them. I think Super Pig is a lot like Mom. Always ready to lend a helping hand, a loyal friend, full of simple wisdom.

Mom could be extremely funny too. She did hilarious things, without meaning to. She fell a lot, so we could excuse Connie by saying it is hereditary, but Mom also had another problem. After having 5 children she had a bit of a bladder control issue. Every time she laughed she wet her pants. (thank heavens, Connie didn't inherit that.)

This type if problem could be terrifying for her children. We kids would have a nervous break down in church, or anywhere, when something hit mom as funny. We would hold our breath and pray, "Please don't let mom wet her pants!"

Our little church in Hinkley supported missionaries in Nepal. One day they wrote us a letter and the pastor read it from the pulpit. They told us about their Nepalese friend they called "KaKa" which means "uncle" in Nepalese, but it means something else in America. For some reason this hit my mom as extremely funny. She giggled and giggled over it, which was very surprising because Mom always acted very proper in church, well most of the time anyway.  I was sweating bullets, trying not to laugh at all, so afraid she'd have an accident and we'd have to sneak out of church, probably while the last song was being sung . Thank heavens nothing happened, that time.

Mom had always been very thin in her younger years, but after all us kids and the passing of time, she began putting on weight. One day she decided  to join Weight Watchers. She did very well. She stuck to the program and lost a lot of weight. I was very proud of her. Though mom lost a lot of weight, she didn't go out and buy new clothes.

In those days it was very common for women to wear house dresses. They were just sleeveless shifts rather shapeless, but cool and comfortable on the desert. That's all I ever saw my mom wear as a kid. I never saw her wear pants or shorts, only dresses and of course nice dresses for church.  After losing the weight, Mom  felt the house dresses still looked okay and there was no money for new clothes anyway.

Since money was in short supply, you didn't go out and buy new clothes, and you certainly didn't waste it on silly things like, well new underwear for instance. Even if the ones you are now wearing are 3 sizes too big.

One day when I was about 13, I went grocery shopping with Mom. She wore one of her house dresses and her 3x too big underwear. As she was wheeling the cart around the grocery store, she had to stop often to adjust her much too large undergarment. After about the 10th adjustment, I made a fatal mistake. I started laughing. It was just so funny to watch her keep pulling up her undies. She kept saying, "These darn underwear!"  So I lost it. The bad news is, mom lost it too. We both got to laughing so hard, and I guess you know what happened....Mom wet her pants.

So here we are in the soda pop aisle and Mom is standing in a rather large puddle. She looks at me and says, "Lets get out of here!" So we fled leaving the soda aisle and puddle far behind, (I hoped they'd think a bottle of Mountain Dew had exploded.) but we didn't leave the store. We had driven 12 miles from Hinkley to the big town of Barstow to do our shopping and we couldn't just leave, we had to finish.

Now Mom had two problems. She was wet and her undies were so heavy she couldn't keep them up without holding on to them. She says to me, "You push the cart and I'll keep my hands in my pockets and hold up my underwear." It was so hard to control my laughter, but I had too. I couldn't risk mom laughing again.

So I pushed the cart and Mom held up her pants. I'm following her around the store, when I see something rather odd. Something hanging out from under her dress. I realized, much to my horror, that it's her underwear. They are now so droopy, they are hanging rather low.

 Now it's not funny. I am a teenager about to be totally humiliated by my mother. I break out in a cold sweat and feel sick to my stomach. I say, quietly yet with emotion, "Mom! Your underwear are hanging out from under your dress!" She says, "Oh, are they?" She goes behind an end cap and gives her undies a might tug, pulling her dress almost up to her waist in the process, trying to adjust her.. situation.

I am dying now. I don't even remember what happened after that, I think I may have blacked out. I just remember being in the check out lane. My sense of humor has now returned and I want to laugh again. Mom tells me to go wait in the car. (She told me later the whole time she waited in line, pee was dripping in her shoe. I'm so glad I had to wait in the car.)

I don't know how she managed to push the cart to the car and hold things together, (and I didn't ask), but she soon appeared at the drivers side door. She got in the car, took off her undies, wrapped them in newspaper and put them in the trunk.

On the way home, she had to pull the car over, we were laughing so hard.

I'm glad I had such a funny mom, one who did such crazy things, and could laugh at herself. She never seemed to get upset about her crazy antics, she just always laughed. Super Pig would have loved her. I miss her.

Mom and Dad married 53 years