Mother's Day

May 9 is Mother's Day, so it is fitting that we salute notable mothers of our time--Maw Green, Mammy Yokum, Mamma Mia, and Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention.

There have been a number of songs written for mothers, most heavily drenched in schmaltz, but for sheer beauty, few can match this stanza from Phil Harris's "That's What I Like About the South":

"I wanta go back to Alabammy

And see again my dear old Mammy.

Her cooking's bad and her hands are clammy,

But what the hell, it's home."

We, of course, treasure the memory of our mother, and especially her pithy maxims ("Sing before breakfast, cry before supper") but protective of her privacy, as she would wish, we give the final salute to the mother of Anthony Trollope.  Trollope's father, engaged in what has been called "wild speculation," plunged the family into penury.  Trollope's mother--Frances--decided she would hold the family together by trying her hand at writing.  She ended up publishing 114 books.

Happy Mother's Day, Mama Trollope, and to all other strong maternal figures, past, present and future.