My mother

Mom's birthday is tomorrow and she'll be 79. I can remember her birthdays over the years. Goodness gracious, when she turned forty in 1972, I thought it was the coolest thing that I had a mother who'd lived four decades. Never mind that Dad had turned forty four months earlier. My world revolved around Mom and her pointy glasses.

"Jimmy," she'd yell from the top of the stairs, wagging her index finger at me, "don't drop that laundry or I'll come down those stairs and slap you!"

Of course I dropped the laundry and of course she marched down the stairs and slapped me. And of course I burst out in gay-boy sobs. And of course I worshipped the ground she walked on.

Three years earlier we'd celebrated her birthday on the screened porch of the new house on Crescent Hills Road -- well, new since we'd only lived there eight months. The house itself was built in 1932, same year as Mom was born. That year we watched TV all day long -- our brand-new black and white Zenith television. We had four channels. KDKA-TV on Channel 2, which was CBS. We watched "Here's Lucy" on Monday nights. WTAE-TV on Channel 2. That was "Bewitched" for Thursdays. WIIC-TV on Channel 11. "Bonanza," of course. Then we also had the really cool Channel 53 ... our UHF channel. I watched re-runs of "The Patty Duke Show" at 6:00 p.m. every night. Afterward I'd go upstairs and look in the mirror. I'd try to curl my hair outward and be Patty Lane. Then I'd curl it inward and be Cathy Lane.

In '69 we watched TV because Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. I can remember that day. So this year, we're getting Mom a TV ... a plasma TV in living color (see that peacock, Mr. NBC) and lots of cable channels -- if they've got them in the nursing home where she's now recovering from a stroke. Too bad she won't be able to use the remote.