MOM

ONE DEMORALIZINGLY hot summer morning my mother took hold of the push bar of a Value City shopping cart and stated unequivocally, "This is my therapy."So it was. She loved to shop, from the old Filene's basement in Boston to the old Julius Garfinkel's on F Street in Washington. She covered them all, reserving a special passion for an item with the slash of a red pen through its price tag.That day six years ago was a hell-fired scorcher.It was a vacation day for me and I somehow had agreed to ride along on what was billed as a simple-and-sweet shopping excursion.

What are you thankful for? we asked our readers.A simple question. But with so many answers.Little things. Big things. Things we have that others don't. The sound of a child's voice. A fluffy dog named Nunzio. A stranger's kindness. A set of bagpipes. A memory of closeness in a family that has grown apart. A hug, a laugh, the smell of rain. A second chance at life.Thousands of people sent us their notes of thanks, far too many, unfortunately, to publish here. What follows is just a small sampling of their amazing breadth.

Fort Mitchell, Ky. Friday, March 6Dear Mom,Greetings from Beer Camp! Oh, I can hear you now: "Camp?! Why, you're 46 years old! Is this some new scheme for you and your disgusting friends to get away for the weekend?"Actually, I flew out here without my disgusting friends, although I have met lots of new disgusting friends, some of whom I will tell you about now.Yep, that's right, Mom, I'm at Beer Camp! Isn't that cool?! I can imagine you making the sign of the cross, but this camp sure is different from the one you sent me to when I was 12, the one with the tar-pit lake and fat Joey Patane setting his hair on fire every time we roasted marshmallows.

INDIANAPOLIS -- If Ernie Irvan has proven anything over the past three years, it's that he excels under adversity. He should be exceptional today.As Irvan celebrates claiming his first No. 1 pole position of the season by leading the Winston Cup stock car field to the start of today's Brickyard 400, he also will be coping with enough bad times to fuel a country music hit.Irvan will be without a job 13 races from now and his mother is critically ill in...

"Do you think someone will offer me drugs this year?"It was one of those confessional conversations that take place so easily in a rolling car, and it revealed how bewildering middle school looks to a new sixth grader. Joe must have felt as if he were entering the lion's den."Maybe," I said, and my heart sank at the truth of this."But certainly someone is going to offer you a cigarette before the year is up. Do you know what you are going to do?"Joe stiffened. "I'll never smoke, Mom. Smoking is stupid."

Kevin Odoms' mother showed him how to make breakfast.Gwen Kvavli Gulliksen's taught her not to be afraid of making a mess in the kitchen.And Nancy Longo's mom, with her nonstop simmering and sauteing, gave her daughter a lesson in running a restaurant.For Mother's Day, we asked five local chefs what they learned about cooking from their mothers, from the practical to the esoteric. One says her mom was a culinary trend-setter 30 years ago. Several have sweet memories of their mother's desserts.

I'm writing my mom's eulogy. Only she's not dead yet.I work on it in the shower, or while I drive to work. Line by line, it occurs to me and interrupts my other thoughts. It has begun to write itself.My mom is very much alive. But she is HIV-positive. She received infected blood during a transfusion 11 years ago, but she didn't find out the terrible truth until 1988. The Red Cross sent her a letter explaining that the donor of the blood she received had tried to give blood again. By that time, all blood was being screened for the immunodeficiency virus.

Sure, Connie Chung was unethical in the way she treated Mom Gingrich. No question about it. But she's also weird.The TV creature has created a flap in politics and journalism by tricking Newt Gingrich's mom into calling Hillary Clinton a nasty name.In a taped interview with Mrs. Kathleen Gingrich, 68, Chung asked Mrs. Gingrich what her boy, Newt, has said about President Clinton.The question led to the following exchange:Mom Gingrich: "Nothing, and I can't tell you what he said about Hillary."

Savvy parents know the scene all too well, especially when you have something important on your schedule."Mom, I don't feel well. My throat hurts."In the middle of breakfast, making lunches and the normal morning confusion, you search for your trusty flashlight. Usually it's not where you normally keep it, and if by some chance it is, the batteries are dead.After a 10-minute search for a good battery, you peer down your child's throat searching for the dreaded white spots. Even though I have many years experience in the mom game, I must admit my fear of trying to peer down kids throats looking for spots.

THE WORLD believes that Neil Armstrong was the first human being to walk on the moon.But the world, as so often happens, is wrong.It was my mother.That's right. One small step for Mom.And one giant leap for the way I would forever view life on Earth.She didn't do it for the glory or the march of science.Mom traveled 240,000 miles into space and back for the same reason she did everything else: to teach me a lesson."Do something," she said before blasting off. "Do something that matters."Mom liked to preach.

Suddenly on October 22, 2009 CATRICIA E. BAINES (nee Kram) age 78 died in Jacksonville, Fl. Survived by her children Darlene Barnett, Valerie Baines, Sharon Louderback, Shelton Baines and Diana Baines. A beloved mom-mom of 12 grandchildren. In lieu of flowers donations can be sent to St. Judes Childrens Hospital in her honor.

Marshal Yanda spent his pre-teen mornings pitching out calf stalls on the family's dairy farm five miles north of tiny Anamosa, Iowa. His afternoons were devoted to riding a four-wheeler he shared with farming buddies, punishing the trampoline in the backyard or shooting baskets with his mom and sister. Life on the farm was good for Yanda. So good that one day he will return to it. For now, though, his consuming passion is carving out a career in the NFL as a gritty and versatile offensive lineman for the Ravens.

I was going to visit my mother on Sunday and bring her a jonquil and a ballpoint pen for Mother's Day, but that's all off thanks to my brother, who is awaiting trial for mail fraud. His lawyers have asked me not to discuss his case, and so I won't, except to say that he's guilty, the little stinker, and richly deserves what's coming to him, but of course you can't tell Mother that. She turns 94 this week and still lives in her own home, drives her own car and only recently gave up playing senior women's hockey.

Le'Ron McClain registered his first career touchdown when he made a 13-yard catch against the San Diego Chargers on Nov. 25. But if the rookie fullback weren't playing football, his career path might have taken a different turn. You were a human environmental sciences major at Alabama. What is that? It's like consumer sciences, stuff like pharmaceutical sales and computer stuff. I liked working with computers and all that. I'd love to work at the Apple store. Who is your biggest inspiration?

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Asenior midfielder for the Friends lacrosse team that went into last weekend undefeated in the Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland B Conference, Brooke Matthews will play next year for current No. 1 Northwestern. She has a 92 academic average, but has not decided on a major. Also a soccer player at Friends, she works in the school senate and as a peer educator for fifth-graders. Her parents, Dia and Mickey Matthews, played college lacrosse. Her mother is coaching the Quakers this season for Sallie Bennett, who is on maternity leave.

Customers walking into the new My Organic Market in Jessup are first greeted by about a dozen different kinds of apples. Gala, Honeycrisp, Fuji, Ambrosia and Golden Delicious are just a few and, like all the produce at My Organic Market - known as MOM - the apples are organic. The Jessup location, which opened in October, is the fourth store in the local chain, which opened in 1987 as a home-delivery and mail-order company called Organic Foods Express. Two years later, the company opened a store in Rockville, moving to a larger Rockville location in 1996.

Suddenly on November 7, 2006, ELAINE E. PARKS (nee Seebach), loving mother of Dana Herron, Tera Fleishell, Ed Montano, and Joey Montano, cherished "Mom-Mom" of Ray, Mike, Alycia, Justin, Emily, Eddie, Damion and Channah, Great "Mom-Mom" of Preston, dear sister of Bill Seebach. A Memorial service will be held at the family owned AMBROSE FUNERAL HOME OF LANSDOWNE, 2719 Hammonds Ferry Road on Saturday at 1 P.M.M-BM- In Lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society, 8219 Town Center Drive, Baltimore, MD, 21236 or the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Maryland Chapter, 10946 Beaver Dam Road, Suite E, Hunt Valley MD, 21030.

If you're looking for a way to add some guilt and stress to your life, here's a suggestion: Take your 85-year-old mother to a movie that's totally inappropriate for her. This is what I did on a recent visit to my mom's, when she decided we needed to get out of the house. "Let's go to a movie," she said. "You pick which one." Well, there wasn't much playing at the movie theater in the small town where she lives. There was a gross-out (Jackass Number Two) and a martial-arts (Jet Li's Fearless)

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TO ALL the co-mothers out there. That's the headline this holiday: 99 percent of dads believe they do as good or better job than moms, according to BabyCenter.com, an online resource for new and expectant parents. And 97 percent of moms agree. "I wasn't surprised to learn that men thought they did as good a job," said Linda Murray, editor in chief of the Web site and its companion magazine, BabyCenter. "Men are more self-confident than women anyway. What really surprised me is that Mom said, 'Yeah.