Marlo Thomas – The Right Words at the Right Time

Here’s Cameron’s contribution to Marlo Thomas’ book
The Right Words at the Right Time.

It was the winter of 1968 when my fifteen-year-old sister decided she wanted to have a weekend getaway with her boyfriend. The plan was to go up to Idyllwild for a few days of snow and possible romance and bring me, her ten-year-old brother, as sort of chaperone. Our parents didn’t like the idea. In fact, they grounded us for even suggesting something so creative, and that’s how we ended up spending a Friday night imprisoned in our bedrooms while my mother held one of her study groups upstairs.

My mom was a teacher at San Diego City College from the late 1960s to 1993. She taught self-designed courses in psychology, speech arts, and philosophy and regularly held study groups in our small, book-stuffed two-story condo. That particular Friday, I sat in my bedroom, sulky and glum, and listened to my mother and her students talking in the living room above me.

About halfway through the study session, one of the students appeared in my bedroom doorway. She had navigated the narrow stairway and stacks of books in search of a bathroom, but, instead, found me. She looked like a vision of early beatnik style in her oversized glasses; big, maroon sweater; and her long, brown hair. She was cool – a beautiful egghead.

“Well, hello,” she said, curiously.

“Hi,” I replied, and the sounds of life brought my sister from her room next door.

“Bummer to be here on a Friday night,” my sister said, “isn’t it?”

The young woman shook her head, her Joan Baez hair flowing, her eyes earnest and wide behind her giant glasses. “We’re here by choice,” she said. “We wanted to come and talk and hang out.” My sister and I looked at each other in utter confusion, waiting for her to reveal the joke. “Your mom is really cool,” the girl offered excitedly. “She’s the best teacher I’ve ever had. I wish she was my mother.”

We were aghast and fascinated. It’s striking to hear someone that cool finding greater cool in your own mother. Cool? Mom?

In that blinding moment, I knew that we had to give our mom a chance. Hearing this student made me realize that my mom was also a person in the world. She was a valuable teacher, and I decided that I would try to listen, not just as a kid but as a person too.

I knew my sister still had her journey to go on before she would be ready. She would one day follow too. From that moment on, sometimes reluctantly, I listened to my mother. Her basic message was to value humanity with good humor and live up to yourself in the world. And always, she dispensed most of her wisdom in the form of painstakingly culled quotes.

She could read volumes of dense philosophy and distill the essence into two or three electrifying sentences. Even now she has quotes for every situation. When I’m facing a particularly rough time. I’ll often hear the buzz of a fax coming in. Inevitably, it’s a fax from my mother with some words or thoughts about strength and positivity. She’s on constant spiritual alert for her kids.

Now I’m a parent with two-year-old twin boys, and I often think about what great parenting really means. All parents have a responsibility to teach and inspired their children, and all kids have a responsibility to let their parents teach, and to be a good listener. There’s nothing more important or, dare I say it…cooler.

For more than forty years, my mother has been an amazing parent and an on-duty teacher. In November 2001, March of Dimes named her one of the mothers of the year. She deserves it. Here are a few of her greatest hits:

Alice Crowe’s Top Five Favorite Quotes

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within
me there lay an invincible summer.

-Camus

Wherever there is a human being, there is an
opportunity for kindness.

-Seneca

I am not full of virtues and noble qualities. I love.
That is all. But I love strongly, exclusively, and steadfastly.

-George Sand

Become the most positive and enthusiastic person
you know.

-H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Ten percent is what life brings to you. Ninety percent
is what you do about it.

-Alice Crowe

Courtesy of The Right Words at the Right Time (Marlo Thomas & Friends) – Cameron Crowe – May 2002