Courage
Miriam Phelan

One Saturday night the movie, “The Wizard of Oz,” was playing again at the New Mission Theatre and Momma wanted all of us to go again. Finding an escape from the cares of the times was always welcome, and “The Wizard” was her favorite movie.

My sisters and I didn’t mind. We were still very young. My older sister Barbara was born in the uncertain days before the country went to war. I was born eight months to the day after President Roosevelt gave his Pearl Harbor speech, so I was already in the works. Younger sister Shirley arrived during Europe’s reconstruction period just after the war.

We were fortunate that Daddy found work in the shipyards at Hunter’s Point, here in San Francisco. Although he was not a tall man, Daddy was built solid, like a ship himself, with powerful oversized hands that never gave up their dingy look so long as he was working. Already thirty-five years old when the call went out, he never had to leave us.

As she hurried to fix dinner, Momma began to worry about the time. I was worried too. “We’re going to be late! We’re going to be late!” I whined, bouncing up and down on my toes at the edge of the table. Momma was wild-eyed and red-faced as she whirled around in the kitchen, madly preparing a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs.

“Get me a wooden spoon!” was her response.

She always made her sauce in a heavy aluminum “Guardian Service” pot with a matching thick glass-cover lid. Whenever I saw that lid, I was reminded of when it fell off the top of the refrigerator, where Momma kept it, onto my head, then down to the floor. It almost knocked me out, but more important, I suspected, was the fact it didn’t break. It would have killed her if it had, and I didn’t want to speculate what would have happened to me.

Momma, who was rarely seen without one of her brightly colored aprons on, loved to cook. She maintained a number of stand-by recipes in her head to draw on in a moment’s notice, and we were always well-fed. She was a chubby little elf with Teutonic features and a thick mane of prematurely grey-brown hair. Her full smile and strong, nothing-held-back voice made her appear bigger than the five-foot-one-inch she claimed to be.

And Momma loved to sing. She accompanied her work this night with, “O Solo Mio,” as she created her sauce and meatballs. The tantalizing fragrance of sautéing onions and garlic spread throughout the little house, not just the kitchen. While the sauce was still bubbling, she seasoned the ground beef, added bread crumbs and egg, then rolled the little meat loaves in flour to make them round. These she popped into the sauce to simmer and cook at least half an hour before the pasta was dropped into the boiling salted water. The steam fogged up her glasses briefly, and then she moved on to tossing the green salad.

Daddy had been sitting in the front room, quietly reading the paper. In contrast, Momma was reaching a state of panic. The meal was just about ready, but the time had almost come for us to leave if we were not to be late. So Momma got out her new Tupperware and loaded each dish into its own container. She quickly grabbed paper plates left over from a holiday, plastic forks and knives and serving spoons. With all this packed in salvaged brown-paper shopping bags with wooden handles, we got ready to make the mad dash to the New Mission Theatre.

As she worked, we stood staring at her and trying to figure out her plan. Momma brought us out of our trance. “Miriam, get your coat! Barbara, hurry up! Clarence, you carry Shirley!” A loaf of French bread, already buttered, protruded from one of the bags along with a knife to slice it. Napkins had been thrown in at the last moment. She was the Scarecrow who had a brain; she was the Woodsman who had a heart; and she was the Lion who had the nerve! And now she was the Wizard about to perform an amazing fete.

As Daddy circled the streets around the show house in his 1938 royal blue Oldsmobile to find a parking space, we helped him by singing, “Follow the Yellow-brick Road” in an assortment of munchkin voices. It must have worked as he quickly found a spot to park the Olds. Our little Mary Jane shoes tapped along the running board as we balanced, then hopped off. There were no seatbelts to impede us then, let alone special car-seats. We had made it on time and would not miss the tornado that brought Dorothy from black and white to the Technicolor world of Oz.

As we entered the theatre, no one questioned our bundles. Just moments after we settled in our seats, and the lights had gone dim, my mother declared, quietly, “It’s dinnertime.” And then Momma performed her own kind of magic. One at a time and carefully, she handed each of us a plate of spaghetti and meatballs, tossed salad, and French bread. I could imagine the surprised smokers seated above in the loge and the people surrounding us on the main floor, salivating with the mysterious aroma of Mom’s spaghetti sauce pervading the theater.

The only thing missing was the milk, but we didn’t mind. Momma had done the impossible and brought dinner to the show. Daddy finished his plate with satisfaction. He knew Momma was special, and the way to his heart was through his stomach.

I’ll never forget that wonderful meal. Momma proved that ordinary people could be wizards and wise men and lovers and brave hearts. All we needed was courage. It was a little gift from my mother I’ll always remember.