Getting to know you

In my ongoing attempt to skim days off my time in Purgatory, I treated my mother and brother to a live show in downtown Chicago yesterday. Afterwards, we all went to dinner at a nearby steakhouse.

My mother lives in the suburbs but loves to come downtown, whether it's to see the storefront lights at Christmastime or a rare dinner/show with me. I think the excitement of city life reminds her of her younger days when she and my father used to attend cocktail parties, looking every bit the socialite couple of the '50s.

Relaxing with a pre-dinner old-fashioned (that's a drink, folks), my mother began to talk about her childhood. Since she was 36 years old when I was born, these rare insights are always wonderful surprises for me.

My mother recently returned from a visit to her sister who lives in Florida. My aunt has, in the last few years, taken up sketching and painting. She's pretty good, too, at least to my untrained eye. I've got a few note cards that are adorned with her artwork.

It seems that as a child, my mother loved art and was, in fact, offered a three-month scholarship to the Art Institute! Her parents, realizing the impracticality of a daughter leaving a job during the Depression to study art, denied her this opportunity.

"I guess God took my talent and gave it to my sister," my mom said.