When my brother Jarvis and I were in elementary school our bedtime was 9:00pm, which meant that we were in bed and sound asleep not a minute past midnight. It also meant that somewhere around 8:59pm on February 13th we would tell mom that we needed to make a Valentines box for school. By “we” we meant “she”.

We did the grunt work, the cutting, the gluing, the whining, the wandering off to catch a little M.A.S.H. with dad, but mom was the idea generator. Our mom was, and still is, an amazingly creative woman, with the power to transform something out of nothing at the drop of a shoebox.

I must admit that I secretly enjoyed being a ringside witness to her endless creative prowess. Maybe she secretly enjoyed it too? If she did, she hid it well as she yanked down the newspaper she had been unwinding with on the end of the couch while contemplating what she had done to deserve the two idiots that had just finished fighting about who could brush their teeth the fastest and were now proclaiming their need for Valentines boxes.

While tossing the paper aside, she would ask through clenched teeth why we had waited until bedtime to bring this up. Asking such a question makes sense when those that you’re asking it to are sensible. Jarvis and I would look at each other and, neither of us seeing anyone sensible, would both look at our mother and shrug. Just shrug, because it seemed sensible to keep our mouths shut.

The dumbfounded shrugs were the starting pistols for moms race to create two knucklehead approved Valentine boxes, get previously mentioned knuckleheads to bed, and enjoy a full five minutes of relaxation before having to stomp upstairs and tell two knuckleheads to get to bed “now…I mean it…this is the last time”. As the parenting expert Merle Haggard once proclaimed, “Momma tried”.

What our mother didn’t know was that my brother and I had side bets going as to how long it would take her to whip something up. Each year we would reflect on the previous year’s events, “Okay, last year we told her the night before…to easy…this year we hold out until breakfast on the morning of February 14th. Then just as she’s getting into the flow I’ll pop the head off of Amanda’s favorite doll. There’s no way mom can maintain focus with that racket going on.”

If only that were the case. If only it wasn’t simply our stupidity and complete lack of comprehension in the concept of time. But alas, it is so. So it goes.

I still remember the shoebox I…she…we turned into a covered wagon. Complete with a cowboy cut-out from one of my comic books to drive the horses hitched to the wagon. No Pinterest, no Google, just the creativity of a mom that could always be counted on in our time of need. Some things never change.

Happy Trails.