20. Mom is 90!!!

My Mom, Adeline Peterson, recently had her life odometer display a number that many people never have the opportunity to see or experience. On November 10, 2010 my Mom entered a new decade of her life when she celebrated her 90th birthday. In honor of this very significant event I am posting a special prattle that is dedicated to my Mom.

In order to reach this major milestone my Mom has had to travel down life's rough and rocky road. During the last several years she unfortunately has been dealing with a long list of health problems that could have easily cut her journey short. For her to be up and around celebrating her 90th birthday is truly a credit to her physical and mental toughness. No matter what went wrong in her life she never complained and somehow she always managed to maintain her very pleasant disposition.

As impressive as my Mom has been in handling her health problems, I feel that she deserves a gold medal, a world championship ring and a first ballot selection into the Mother's Hall of Fame for an entirely different accomplishment in her life.

I feel that my Mom deserves these awards because she was able to somehow manage a household that consisted of one classic old school Norwegian husband and two very dysfunctional sons. I have no idea how she kept her sanity or what motivated her to work so hard at trying to mold this group of misfits into a normal family. It was a no win situation for her but to her credit she always followed the mantra of the late Jim Valvano....don't give up....don't ever give up.....and my Mom didn't give up.

"My Mom's Ultimate Goal"

Seeing I couldn't come up with any of these special  awards I decided that we needed to have an official 90th birthday party to honor my Mom for all of her life's accomplishments. This of course meant that I needed to plan, coordinate and host a birthday party. Only my very close friends will understand what a daunting task this was for me..... as I've been told so many times..."Palmer, you are a great guest but a terrible host"....think this party caused me a little stress???

How the heck am I going to do this?

Much to my surprise I did manage pull off a two day extravaganza.. To make a long story short the two celebration were as follows:

Day 1 - Saturday, November 6th - Party at the Peterson Ranch located at 13th and Main in Zumbrota.........big crowd......lots of.relatives and friends attended.......huge success....my Mom loved it...

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Footnote - growing up on the corner of 13th Street and Main Street molded my personality in the following ways: 

-Main street caused me to live a "mainstream" life style... as in generic, predictable, simple and boring

-13th Street of course speaks for itself....there is a reason they don't have a 13th floor in high rise buildings.....black cats also roamed up and down this street during my childhood.....(superstitious is my middle name)

*See my resume for other reasons that back up my theory.
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Day 2 - Sunday, November 7th......took my Mom to church.....hosted an open house at Minneola Church....entertained a good sized crowd.....another huge success.....haven't seen my Mom smile so much in long time.

As they say a picture is worth a 1,000 words, so I will let the following photo gallery tell the story of the big weekend. I have also added some captions that provide quotes from my Mom.....of course these are things she would never say........ but who knows?..... maybe she would like to say these things about her two sons...(all meant in good fun of couse)

                                       PHOTO GALLERY

                                         Let's party!!!

"I hope they are giving more than just this cake....this is my 90th birthday you know"





"Paul actually planned all this?......hard to believe"



"Flowers and balloons are nice but where the heck are my gifts?"

 

"Great party.....still can't believe that Paul pulled this off"





'You would think that one of these two clowns would have given me a grandchild"

 



"At least they brought me to church"

 



"Look at me now.....Look at me now....check out my new birthday outfit"

 

"Just between you and me.... I think I did okay as a Mother considering what I had to work with"