I read a friend’s post on social media the other day about unintentionally embarrassing her kids. I laughed because haven't we all done this as parents? Reading her description of it brought back so many fond memories of not only embarrassing the heck out of my own children, but of also being embarrassed myself as a child by my mother. I looked up the definition of embarrass…well actually I didn’t really look it up in a dictionary. Instead I just asked my Alexa for the definition, AI does have some advantages! I found the definition of embarrass is to cause someone to be uncomfortable or self conscious, and as a child I remember a couple of times that my own mother caused me to feel this way.

Before I go any further I want everyone to know that I got permission from my mother to share this story. After all, Mom is now an internet sensation following her hiking adventure in the Grand Tetons. So I didn’t want to tarnish her image, but she was ok with my sharing this and I hope I do the memory justice.

My first memory of being totally embarrassed by my mother was in 1979, I was 13 years old, which I guess is the prime time for realizing that your parents are not cool. The Bangor Mall had just opened and Mom took myself and my sister to the Mall for the grand opening. This was a monumental event. Although Bangor already had a mall, The Airport Mall, which had actually been the first mall in the state of Maine, it was small compared to the new Bangor Mall! This new Mall was built on land that had originally been dairy farms. I remember my dad taking me out there as a small child where we would sit on the side of the road and stare at the cows. But now, in 1979, this land right next to Interstate 95, was prime retail space and this giant Mall had been built that would make Bangor the retail center of Eastern Maine. Canadians would drive south for hours to shop here. During the annual high school basketball tournaments in February, you couldn’t get near the place as residents of every small community, within a 3 hour driving radius of Bangor, came to town. For these folks from rural Maine, coming to Bangor, to see their local high school athletes try to win the coveted gold ball trophy, and then go shopping at the Bangor Malll, one just like the malls seen on TV, was a highlight of their year. We didn’t get out much back then.

Into this setting my sweet mother drove Theresa and I to the Mall. Back then Mom drove a 1974 Ford Pinto. You know the one that they recalled because the gas tank exploded if you were rear ended in an accident. That’s the one! This was a really awesome car. It was white with lime green stripping and a massive window in the hatchback. We once got twelve kids from my high school track team squished into this car that technically only seated four. Seat belt rules were optional back then. I remember Matt lying in the back pressed up against that large window in the hatchback while someone sat on his head, it was awesome, but that’s a story for another day.

Once we had arrived at the Mall the place was packed with shoppers. It was wall to wall people. For those that now drive by the practically deserted Mall and see the acres and acres of parking spaces, cracked and growing weeds, believe me all of those spaces were really needed at one time! Into this sea of humanity my mother dragged her two young daughters so we could witness for ourselves this beautiful new concept. The Mall. Sears had moved from it’s ancient brick store in downtown Bangor to be one of three anchor stores in the new Mall. Here everything that the once great and mighty Sears sold, from clothing to lawn mowers, were visible in the vast brightness of modern retail commercialism. Shiny floors, columns covered in mirrors, row after row of over head lighting and gleaming chrome fixtures just made everything sparkle. They even had real trees in pots with benches placed under them. Like you were outside in a park rather then inside a vast retail oasis. We strolled through the Mall looking into the huge glass windows that displayed the goods that could be found within. There was Spencers Gifts with its black light velvet posters glowing enticingly along side the lava lamps and incense sticks in the window. We were forbidden to enter Spencers Gifts due to the adult nature of some of their products, so it thus became a lifelong goal to walk inside some day. There was K-B Toys with more toys then we had ever seen in our life. Imagine a store that just sold toys! There was Dorsey’s Music Store where you could flip through hundreds of bins that held albums of every type of music created. It was here that I started my tradition of buying a 45 rpm record every week, I think they were 50 cents. Across the way was York Steak House, another place that became a weekly tradition. Here I could buy a #4 meal. A burger, fries and a soft drink for $1.49. Always got that burger medium rare.

In the middle of the walkways of the Mall were little kiosks where you could buy sunglasses or jewelry. It was at one of these that I noticed a young girl, sitting in a very high chair, getting her ears pierced. The clerk was using something that looked like a gun. The earring was loaded into this gun and with a quick punch the earring was driven right into the girl’s ear. She didn’t even cry! I marveled at this technology because only 4 years earlier my Mom and her best friend had sat me in a kitchen chair and frozen my earlobes with ice cubes, then driven a sewing needle through my ears to pierce them, one at a time. I cried like crazy! But I lived and my ears are still pierced to this day!

As our stoll through the Mall continued we spotted Baskin Robbins Ice Cream. This was pretty fancy because this was the first time we were exposed to ice cream flavors other then chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. There were crazy unheard of flavors here like Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Bubble Gum with real pieces of gum in it and even Cotton Candy! It was here that Mom decided to spend her limited funds on buying us a treat. Both my sister and I got cones with two scoops of ice cream on them. I don’t remember now what flavors we got but I do remember there were two scoops on our cones. I remember this because we had just stepped out of the store and back into the coursing stream of people walking through the Mall when I bit into my ice cream and the top scoop fell right off and landed on the floor!

At age 13 naturally I was mortified by this, but what happened next sealed this trauma in my brain forever. As my mother realized what I had done, she quickly pulled out a napkin and bent to pick up the offending ball of ice cream from the floor. The only problem was that just about everyone in Eastern Maine was in the Mall that day and as she bent down amongst the throng of people, someone kicked it!! Now my little ball of ice cream was sent rolling across the pristine marble tile of the brand new Mall. To compound the tragedy of this event, my mother ran after it! Still holding her own cone in one hand, her ever present macramé pocketbook dangling off her shoulder by its long strap, she reached down again, in and around the legs and feet of strangers, in an attempt o retrieve the ice cream ball when it is kicked yet again. I watched in horror as that little ice cream ball was repeatedly kicked over and over, by unsuspecting participants in my humiliation and embarrassment, and my mother scurried, after it, bending, reaching and failing multiple times to pick it up.

When the ball of ice cream had finally cleared the wing we were in and made it’s way into the even more crowded Center Court my mother gave up. She came walking back to us, napkin still in her hand, my sister stood laughing while I tried desperately to pretend I didn’t know my own mother. The unimaginable horror of this event meant I didn’t even want to finish my still remaining ice cream. I was literally sick to my stomach. I remember dumping the cone, evidence of my mother’s deep dive into uncoolness, into the nearest trash can. The Mall no longer held any sparkle for me, I just wanted to slink away, unseen, to the car and go home. How many people had seen my mother looking so foolish? My mother running through the opulent new Mall chasing a ball of ice cream! I mean can you really visualize anything any more embarrassing to a thirteen year old girl?

Why yes I can, because Mom was able to top the ice cream ball chasing incident only a few years later while walking around Boston when her hip started getting a kink in it! A situation we refer to in the family as “Mom’s Ostrich Walk” or “The Strutting Chicken”. Ask her about it sometime! No really you should!