Those of you who have been reading my blog posts have seen a lot of stories about my dad, who truly gave me my love of sports. But, with Mother's Day last week, I've been thinking a lot about my mom and I think she deserves at least equal time, so I hope you don't mind me digressing from writing about my career and my life this time.

Beatrice Bessie Krieger met my dad, William Isadore Harris, around 1935. I believe she was 18 and my dad was either 16 or 17. He was working at a mom and pop grocery store on the east side of Cleveland and was out front sweeping off the sidewalk when Bea came along, pushing her baby sister, Gail, in a carriage. Bill chatted her up, made a date and the rest is kind of history - at least the history of the five Harris children.

Mom and Dad in good times

Mom was one of the sweetest and kindest people in the world. She wanted to help everybody and often did help those who needed it. But five kids in 10 years was often overwhelming, and it didn't help that dad was a traveling salesman, who was often gone for five days a week - and sometimes more.

My mom never got her driver's license, although she did take driving lessons several times. I remember the last time she tried it. The lessons included the instructor having her drive several times around Madison's Capital Square, a very intimidating place for a novice driver. But she was proud to get her "graduation certificate" from the driving school.

My dad, who I believe, for some reason, never wanted mom to drive, took her out and totally freaked her out. So much so, that she wound up with his Cadillac crossways on our driveway. That was the end of mom driving.

When I turned 16 and got my license, I became the de facto house taxi and shopper, which has certainly stood me in good stead over the years.

Since I was the oldest, I also had a lot of responsibility for my brothers and sisters. Bob, the youngest has often said in jest that, until he was about 10, he thought I was his dad. But I was in charge a lot as mom needed to occasionally decompress.

Sometimes, she would take to her bed for a week or 10 days, just saying she was not feeling very well. When I first brought Judy home I took her up to mom's bedroom to meet her. As we walked back down the stairs, Judy leaned in and whispered, "Is she going to be okay?"  I laughed and explained the situation.

The next time Judy came over, a week or so later, mom was in the kitchen, smiling, laughing and  cooking dinner for eight people, including my dad, who had just gotten home. In fact, it was uncommon to have just family at our dinner table. We kids brought friends home all the time and mom never failed to greet them happily and cook for everyone. I'm sure it was exhausting.

Unfortunately, after many years of marriage - most of them seemingly very good - my dad had a true mid-life crisis and walked out, not only on my mom but on the whole family. We were all adults by then and we were estranged from him for the last 20 years of his life, which was sad for all of us.

They had been living in Cincinnati for a couple of years when dad left and we were all worried about how mom would survive on her own. After all, she was mostly a housewife and mother throughout her life, although she did hold office in groups like B'nai Brith and the temple Sisterhood in Madison.

Another thing I should mention is that she was very bright, an avid reader and had loads of friends. Before my brothers and sisters and I could come up with a plan to help her out, financially or otherwise, mom had found a job as a supervisor in a retirement home. She was able to work there until she retired, often telling us stories about how she dealt with the "old people,'' many of whom were younger than her.

She had a one-bedroom apartment in Cincinnati and, after our kids were born, we would sometimes visit and stay over. Mom would sleep on the couch, giving Judy and me her bed, and she would make up what she called a "nest" for the kids - meaning she threw piles of blankets and pillows on the floor for them to sleep on. They loved it.

Another passion for mom, besides her grand kids and her "old people," was slot machines. She had gone to Las Vegas a couple of times with dad and fell in love with the one-armed bandits. When I began traveling the auto racing circuit for the AP, Judy and I would sometimes ask mom to come to New Jersey (we lived in Westfield at the time) to stay with the kids so Judy could travel with me.

I would send her a plane ticket and, after we got home, her "pay" was some cash and a bus trip from a Howard Johnson Motel in neighboring Clark, NJ, to a casino in Atlantic City. It was a $25 round trip and she would get a $5 coupon for a casino buffet and a $10 coupon for quarters for the slots. The bus left around eight in the morning for the two-hour ride and was back by dinner time.

Whenever you'd ask mom how she did, she would say, "I won a lot."  What that meant was that every time the slot machine paid back anything, she considered it a win.

She would call when the bus arrived back at the motel and I would drive over to get her. One evening, I picked her up and she asked me to come inside. I was afraid something had happened to her, but it was just that she had hit a jackpot moments before the bus left for home. Not enough time to cash in, so her purse was loaded with quarters and she was too tired to carry it.

At home that night, she sat at the kitchen table and divided the riches up with the grand kids. She poured the quarters out on the table and had the kids help her put them into stacks of four. She then proceeded to divide them up: "One for you, Tory. One for you, Lanni. And two for me."

Another time, she called from Atlantic City to say she was having so much fun she wanted to stay over. I offered to get her a room at the casino hotel, but she said, "That's okay. I'll probably just stay up late and take a nap in the lobby."

I told her that the security people likely wouldn't allow that, but she said not to worry, she'd be fine.

She arrived home the next afternoon worn out but smiling.

"I slept in a chair in the lobby of Harrah's and a nice security man kept an eye on me and my purse," she said. "The assistant manager of the hotel came in the morning to make sure I was all right and let me use the bathroom in one of the hotel rooms to clean up and brush my teeth."

That was mom.

After she retired, mom would sometimes travel in the summer with Judy and me and kids to racing venues.

I invited her to join us at a resort in the Poconos one year and she said she would take the bus to meet us in Pennsylvania. What I didn't realize until it was too late was that the bus stop we were supposed to pick her up from was in the middle of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, nowhere near any town. It was actually a transit point for buses to switch passengers.

I tried to call her and tell her to meet us closer to where we were going to be staying, but it was too late. She was already on the bus.

We were all concerned for her safety and I definitely broke the speed limit on the way to meet her. But when we arrived at the bus stop - an uncovered bench in the middle of nowhere - no mom.

Just as I was about to try calling the state police to help us track her down, the bus arrived, and there she was, not the least worried about us finding her.

"I would have waited,'' she said, smiling.

On that same trip, we went to one of our favorite restaurants in the Poconos, along with a large, friendly group of racing people, who were happy to have mom join us. This particular restaurant was known for its dessert table, which stretched the length of one of the side rooms and was included with dinner.

As we walked in, mom spotted the dessert table and her eyes got wide. After we sat down and got our menus, she beckoned for me to come over to her. She leaned in and whispered in my ear, "Do I have to order from the menu or can I just eat dessert?"

I've never seen anybody happier as she tried just about every dish on that long, sweets-filled table.

She's been gone since 1984 and I still think about her and miss her almost every day.