Linda in June of 1979

The photograph below was taken by Linda's ex-husband (my former stepfather) Nadir, at the offices of the business she started in Egypt, Allied Resources and Consulting Services (ARCS). The picture is from late June, 1979. The thing in my mother's hand is a baby bottle. She was feeding mys sister Aziza, who was only a very few months old at the time.

ARCS was a business services company that offered temporary office space, secretarial services, phone and telex (fax machines and the internet had not yet been invented), and other services to businesses. It was located at 3, Midan El Sheikh Youssef Square, Garden City, Cairo. This is the place where Nadir got his first notion that he could be a photographer; he took the first photographs for Coca Cola Egypt while working there.

The business did not last long. In 1981 my mother went on to work with Mounir Neamatallah on a company that he was founding; the name of the new company was Environmental Quality International (EQI).

If you click on the image, you can download a much larger version of the photograph with a resolution suitable for high-resolution printing. If you would like me to do this with all future photos, leave me a comment to that effect.

Red

My mother's favorite color was red.

Her Children's Works

My mother cherished every little scrap of art or literature produced by her children, especially when they were very young. She had drawings made by her children framed and hung on the wall next to expensive paintings that she had purchased in her travels around the world, for example.

One item that she held dear to her heart was a poem written by my sister, Sarah, when she was very young (perhaps 8 years old) about our brother, Osman, who must have been 12 or 13 at the time. It goes like this:

Osman eats poo
and drinks pee.
He also hits you on your nee.
So be were of Osman the Fly.
eee eee eee eee eee

Osman will do anything he wants to do.
He even can kill you.
ooo ooo ooo ooo oooo.

That's the end of Osman song.

What can I say? There are some things that only a mother can love.

A few things that should be noted:

1. It is not clear whether Sarah ever changed her mind about her brother,
2. I never witnessed my brother Osman do any such thing,
3. the spelling is all Sarah's, and
4. my drawings of elephants when I was three were very cute, and really did belong on the fridge.

Cliff the Butcher

Cliff was my mother's butcher, on and off (off only when she did not live in Chapel Hill/Carrboro), for more than 35 years. My mother claims that I used to run through the store yelling "Give me Braunschweiger" when I was three years old.

In an August, 2005, coversation about a recipe for Moroccan-style meatball stew, my mother said:

"[It] Sounds wonderful except for the frozen meatballs. [Frozen meatballs are] stupid, because making the recipe as a whole takes a good deal of time, [while] making meatballs doesn't, and you can't trust those people in grocery chains at all these days. They all adulterate the meat, color it, put in various additives that you'd rather not know about. When they're not poisoning you, they do the mystery shopper thing, which is so offensive that you get sick even before you eat any meatballs. I am blessed with an independent butcher, who does't even sell frozen meat, or frozen and defrosted and then sold (that's what the chains do, we cannot guess why), and everything is cut to your design, AND the meat is a lot cheaper than in the groceries. I love this guy. He doesn't do meatballs. I've cut them out altogether, and I'm sure I'm a better person for it. I do, however, get other things which are already made, but which contain no meat, such as frozen Indian breads of various sorts which are very very good and which I have yet to figure out how to make them at home."

If you are ever near the corner of West Main Street and North Greensboro Street in Carrboro, North Carolina, go see Cliff, and ask for anything but meatballs. Tell him that Linda Oldham's son Jake says "Hi."

Musical Birds

I must say, Carol has been outdoing everybody; she has sent me a mailboxful of stories and email conversations she and my mother shared. It is a good thing that I have several hundred gigabytes of server space, so I will not run out of space any time soon.

I had been thinking about writing something about my mother's taste in music, and one of the stories Carol sent me fits the bill very well:

Carol: "I've got a bird who's a Billie Holliday freak. Just put her music on and he starts whistling, talking, bobbing up and down, clicking and so forth. Amazing."

Linda: "That bird has taste. Try him with Nina Simone and Bessie Smith. If he can handle that, try Dory Previn."

Have a nice day ma'am

My mother's friend, Carol Redmount, who is a very smart lady, once emailed my mother this story:

A couple goes on vacation to a fishing resort in northern Minnesota. The husband likes to fish at the crack of dawn. The wife likes to read. One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap. Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and continues to read her book. Along comes a game warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says, "Good morning Ma'am. What are you doing?"

"Reading a book," she replies, (thinking "isn't that obvious?")

"You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her.

"I'm sorry officer, but I'm not fishing, I'm reading."

"Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I'll have to take you in and write you up."

"If you do that, I'll have to charge you with sexual assault," says the woman.

"But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden.

"That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment."

"Have a nice day ma'am," said the warden, and he left.

MORAL: Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.

I assume that, since you are here, you knew my mother, or at least knew of her. If so, then you know that winning an argument with my mother was near impossible, although Carol might have won a few.

Carol has just sent me a number of choice email exchanges she had with my mother, and I could not appreciate it more; it was as though she had returned a part of my mother to me. Please do not be stingy with stories about my mother.

Thank you most profusely, Carol.

Linda and kids circa 1988

From left to right: Jake (Osama), Aziza, Linda, Sarah, and Osman.
Postscript: Sarah commented on the photograph. She still has the dress my mother is wearing in this photograph. I find that strangely heartwarming.