Mother's Three Rules

Mother's Three Rules Stephen Dunning Mother pointed to the front porch steps, as ifshe'd been waiting for the chance. "Three rules, Son." She sat me down and held up the inside fingers ofher right hand. "Three simple rules." She fixed onto my ten-yearold eyes. "Follow these and you make clear to everyone that you are a gentleman ."And ticking them offwith her left index finger, Mother announced her rules. Sixty years later, those three rules demand reflection. But in 1935, anxious to play with the Rileys, I nodded after each pronouncement, and childhood whooshed by. Suddenly it was 1943. I was home on furlough, full grown, and on that splendid June day had again broken Rule 1. More exactly, I was home from Cornell University's Army Specialized Training Program where for four hours each night, armed with wooden rifle, I patrolled one quarter-mile of the University's perimeter. My exemplary work in protecting Cornell from enemy attack somehow came to the attention of a grateful bureaucracy and it, hoping to bring World War II to a speedy end, decided that I was exactly what the US Army Air Corps should train as a pilot. Then, realizing how they had dilly-dallied before making their decision, they gave me a fourteen-day breather. Consider! Two weeks at home in St. Paul, Minnesota, slated to be a key player inWorldWar II, and more immediately, within hours in fact, booked for a blind date with Emily Armentrout. Emily's good looks and personality were frequently discussed among the young gendemen who knew her, and I'd paid close attention. I'd heard the words "keen" and "ripe." Ifyou have ever been eighteen and had a blind date—or worse, have been one—you understand my nervousness, contemplating the arrangements made by my friendWalterWhitney. It was a particularly bad time to have violated one of my Mother's rules—especially Rule 1, which was not Rule 1 for nothing. My miscue had upset Mother, and I needed her Chevy in order 48 Stephen Dunning49 to accomplish my agenda. That included taking Emily to the movie of her choice, wolfing down some drive-in food, then driving to Lover's Leap, overlooking the Minnesota River. See, I was hot for Emily Armentrout and would surely become more so once I actually met her. Getting the use of Mother's Chevy was essential; I couldn't walk Emily to Lover's Leap. Although I'd broken Rule 1, I knew that Mother would somehow forgive me. I was only eighteen, after all. I was a soldier, perhaps destined to die for his country, home only briefly. And I was, after all, Mother's only son. So, shaving for the second time that late Spring day, I slicked my brush cut withVitalis and, skin a-tingle from AquaVelva, went downstairs to liberate the Chevy. "Ma," I said, arms around her from the back, snuggling into her lavender-scented neck. "Ma, I'm real sorry." Mother leaned back. Was she even listening? "I'll never do it again," said this only son. "It's just, Ma, in the service, they don't always follow the rules." A slight squeeze. "They aren't all gentlemen, Ma, like you'd like." I heard her motherly little humph. "Can I borrow the Chevy tonight?" Fully aware ofmy motives, Mother stiffened. "I guess so," she said finally. "But Son, Rule 1! Promise not to leave the seat up again." Then a new worry arose as older sister Mary began prying into my evening's plans. Who was my date? Where were we going? I knew Mary would stop at nothing in pursuit ofher own social objectives, but where was the payofffor her in details of my date with Emily Armentrout? In retrospect, it seems my youth and late adolescence were lifted from Booth Tarkington novels and Andy Hardy comedies, surely not from Huck Finn or the Studs Lonigan novels ofJames T. Farrell. In retrospect, Mother's rules seem so silly, unrelated to important matters. But to my present shame, I didn't question them then; in truth, neither war nor morality was on my mind that day...