Treasures

We were talking, as we often do, about the olden days. We would have talked irregardless. It was Sunday after all. My mother and I do that. We talk on Sundays. And frequently on other days of the week as the occasion calls for it. But this was Mother's Day, and the distance that separates us this year felt expressly huge as we continue to shelter in place. Chatting on the phone took some of the edge off that feeling.
As it always does.
We spoke of times gone by, with plenty of love and affection, mixed with a twist of sarcasm to keep from falling into Hallmark territory. She told me about her first pair of Keds. The ones she bought when she was eight or nine with the money her grandmother gave her. The first money she could remember having, since she grew up in the back of a drug store there wasn't a need for carrying cash. But there she was: flush. And she knew what she wanted. She tried them on and felt happy for making her first purchase, for which she plunked down the bills on the counter. Unfortunately, because she had been carrying them folded up for security, she was under the impression that she had twice as much money as she did in reality. Mortified, she had to be bailed out by her grandmother who was on for just such an emergency. My mother lived to hate those shoes for the memory of that embarrassment.
This is how I found out that Keds have been making shoes for a very long time. We also touched on the glass that my mother uses for her lunch, which is a pretty solid ritual for her. The glass used to belong to that same grandmother, and it has survived all these years. We reckoned that glass would be more than a hundred years old at this point. It has a chip on the rim, not jagged, but could do a nice number on your lip if you weren't being careful.
And my mother is always careful.
We talked for an hour or so, and then parted ways so she could prepare her lunch, along with that glass. Our conversation pinballed across nine decades or more, tagging off on my childhood and hers. I confessed to my own predilection for collecting souvenir tumblers from sporting events. We agreed that they might not be as viable in another fifty years. However, I know in my mother's cupboard is a plastic mug from Arby's commemorating the Denver Broncos' 1983 season. Last time I visited, it still held water.
And there's no chip on the rim. We'll talk again.