1940s Archive

Mama Sits in Office

Originally Published August 1944

Honor came to Mama some years after her attempt to reform politics in our town. She was appointed to the school board. It was the first honest appointment in years, and people wondered whether Mama had gone into the school supply business, had a lot needed for a football field, or was thinking of running a snack bar off the High School grounds, where the football players could lose their salaries on punch boards. Football was then the ninth national industry, being just behind songs about Mammy and Dixie….

The truth was that the political boss, Silver Dollar Hansen, and the Major's family, which owned the town factories, had a falling out as to where the High School cement oval for football games should be built. The Major owned a bus line past some swamps, and Silver Dollar had a rabbit patch he wanted to see marked off by goal posts—for a small sum of fifty thousand dollars. Papa had some worthless land along a creek bottom … and being honest and a loyal follower of the track teams, he stepped in and gave them the worthless land for nothing. And both Silver Dollar and the Major, to spite each other, planned the cement football oval there on Papa's land. As a reward to Papa for such honesty, Mama was put on the school board to help vote for cement, steel, and sod to build the field, and also to see that the football players were not molested by studies at school while they were digesting their food and keeping their minds keen for the coming Saturday….

Both sides overlooked the fact that Mama hated football in her mature years … a very un-American thing in our town. We were proud of our six cripples and the one broken neck we produced each year during the season's touchdowns.

Mama asked Papa how to act at the first board meeting.

“You will find the Major will tell the board how to vote, and Silver Dollar will pass the hat for the votes….”

“What's Silver Dollar doing on the school board?” asked Mama.

“Every town group has their man on the board.”

Mama pulled on her gloves. “He must be the example of those who can't read or write.”

The first meeting of the board with Mama sitting on it did not go well. Mama told me all about it. Mama had tossed in a scented bombshell by saying that football was a fool's game and not worth the candle, and the wind of disapproval was against it … so let's put our shoulders to the wheel and give the money for the field to the fund for free milk for school kids. After this mixed-metaphor speech Mama sat down and asked for a vote. She lost.

Mama said she wasn't going to give up … she was out to do away with football in High School, and then she would tackle it at the College…. “Not 'tackle' it,” she said. “That's football talk.”

The great Football Rebellion is history now. Mama worked hard at it and got two others on the board to join her demand for more learning and less dropkicking.

Mama came home, and Papa told-her-so. And she said she wasn't through … she was going to get Ogell-muggell to join her group!

Papa opened his mouth and let words come out. “Ogellmuggell!”

“And why not?” asked Mama.

“But he's the greatest football player ever seen in these parts! When he goes on to the College, he's All-American!”

Mama smiled, as if he had asked her to climb a tree by using only her small white teeth. “You agree, then, that if I get Ogell-muggell on my side, I can win?”

“Now, Sara,” said Papa, “it's like asking the Prince of Wales to give up polo.”

“He should in his position,” said Mama, and went upstairs to rest before dinner. Papa looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

“We're in a spot, Stevie.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Mama has a cause again.”

“'Cause what?” I asked.

So Papa said I could go out and hunt water bugs, but not to bring them into the house again; they had a habit of falling into the flour bin.

“Of course, she can't get Ogell-muggell … not a chance. He's only a football player, and not very human, and you can't talk to him very much … he only understands motions.”

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