About My Mother: True Stories of a Horse-Crazy Daughter and Her Baseball-Obsessed Mother

by Peggy Rowe, Mike Rowe (Foreword by)

Overview

A Message from Mike Rowe, the Dirty Jobs Guy: Just to be clear, About My Mother is a book about my grandmother, written by my mother. That’s not to say it’s not about my mother—it is. In fact, About My Mother is as much about my mother as it is about my grandmother. In that sense, it’s really a book about “mothers.”

...It is not, however, a book written by me. True, I did write the foreword. But it doesn’t mean I’ve written a book about my mother. I haven’t. Nor does it mean my mother’s book is about her son. It isn’t. It’s about my grandmother. And my mother. Just to be clear.—Mike

A love letter to mothers everywhere, About My Mother will make you laugh and cry—and see yourself in its reflection. Peggy Rowe’s story of growing up as the daughter of Thelma Knobel is filled with warmth and humor. But Thelma could be your mother—there’s a Thelma in everyone’s life. She’s the person taking charge—the one who knows instinctively how things should be. Today, Thelma would be described as an alpha personality, but while growing up, her daughter Peggy saw her as a dictator—albeit a benevolent, loving one. They clashed from the beginning—Peggy, the horse-crazy tomboy, and Thelma, the genteel-yet-still-controlling mother, committed to raising two refined, ladylike daughters. Good luck.

When major league baseball came to town in the early 1950s and turned sophisticated Thelma into a crazed Baltimore Orioles groupie, nobody was more surprised and embarrassed than Peggy. Life became a series of compromises—Thelma tolerating a daughter who pitched manure and galloped the countryside, while Peggy learned to tolerate the whacky Orioles fan who threw her underwear at the television, shouted insults at umpires, and lived by the orange-and-black schedule taped to the refrigerator door.

Sometimes it takes a little distance to appreciate the people we love.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948677165
Publisher:	Forefront Books
Publication date:	11/13/2018
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	58,934
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Peggy Rowe lives in Baltimore, Maryland, with John, her husband of sixty-one years. Both educators, they raised three sons. Peggy has been writing for most of her adult life and has two New York Times bestsellers to her credit—both of which were published after the age of eighty. Now eight-four, she is living the good life in a retirement community where material abounds. Peggy continues to write every day of her life—preferably without wearing jewelry or a bra.

Mike Rowe is best known as the executive producer and host of the hit shows Dirty Jobs, Somebody’s Gotta Do It, and Returning the Favor, for which he won an Emmy. He also hosts the podcast The Way I Heard It, a collection of short stories for the “curious mind with a short attention span.” As CEO of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, Mike has led the effort to close America’s widening skills gap and facilitated the granting of millions of dollars in work ethic scholarships.

Table of Contents

Foreword x

Take Me Out to the Ballgame! 1

Home Fires 15

Only the Good Stuff 22

Facing the Music 28

Miss Blevins 36

Ahead of Her Time 45

The Christmas Conspiracy 48

Just the Two of Us 54

Religion and Horses 61

Family: For Better or Worse 72

Paradise Found 88

Moving On 106

New Territory 114

Up in Smoke: Marriage and the Family 127

Bragging Rights 141

Our Christmas Close-up 146

The Day Mom and I Ate at the White House 151

The Rascal Scooter 159

A Whole New Ballgame: The Most Exciting Day of Mom's Life 163

Epilogue 170

Family Remembrances 171

Discussion Questions for Book Clubs Marjie Rowe 173