Good Genes

That's my mother, age 81 and sill rocking. She has a better social life than mine, runs a money-making business (three apartments and six urban parking spaces), and keeps up with her two kids and five grandkids.

That fellow next to her is Darwin, another bit of fine work, of pedigree unknown but clearly of royal stock as can be discerned from his regal bearing, calm demeanor, and daily associations.

My mother, originally from the same small town in Kansas that gave the world Barack Obama's mother, has been all over the world, living in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Zimbabwe, Mali, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria.

She has been all over the U.S. and Canada, and traveled from Mexico to Machu Pichu. She has seen every Cathedral in Europe and every bazaar in Turkey, and she visited Petra on a donkey while Steven Spielberg was still in grade school.

She can make a decent wall of wooden bookcases, boat a 20-pound pike, cook a hell of a Thanksgiving Day Turkey, and negotiate her way through a Japanese airport.

And if there is ever a poster child for life-long learning, she is surely it.

And did I mention that she has had terriers her entire life and still does?

True! 

Yes, I am my mother's son, and I am grateful for that every single day I draw breath.

Thank you God for giving me my mother's twin genes (half Scottish and half Norwegian), of infinite humor and a very low tolerance for bullshit. They are a nice matched set.

And please, God, give me her genes for good health as well. I would pay to look this good now.