Weekly Comments
Current Issue
Sunday, May 11, 2025
ISSUE #1257
Weekly Comments: Mother’s Day Flowers are Fine, but Meat is Tastier.  

Will Rogers on his Sunday evening radio broadcasts paid tribute on Mother’s Day, in 1930 and 1935. Here are brief excerpts.

“This is Mother’s Day. Of course, it’s pretty late in the evening now to remind you of it. If you didn’t know it before, there’s not much you can do about it now, unless you, well, you might possibly shame you into going to a florist.

They’re keeping open this evening just to accommodate late consciences…

My own mother died when I was ten years old.  My folks have told me that what little humor I have comes from her.  I can’t remember her humor but I can remember her love and her understanding of me. 

Of course, the mother I know the most about is the mother of our little group.  She has been for twenty-two years trying to raise to maturity four children, three by birth and one by marriage. You know, there ought to be some kind of a star given to any woman that can live with a comedian.  Now, that little compliment ought to repay for the flowers that I forgot to get today…

Florists, they got mothers, too. But they’ve got more flowers than they’ve got mothers, and they’ve got a great organization.

The florists, they’ve just practically corralled this Mother’s Day business…

There’s nothing in the world more beautiful than flowers. The florists and the horticulturists, they’ve done great things to nurse these flowers along until they’re beautiful beyond anything we could possibly think of. 

And every home that can possibly afford ’em should have flowers all you can. But on the other hand, there’s an awful lot of need and want in the country, and I got a plan. My plan is not to eliminate flowers. I’m strong for flowers, but they’ve just got one drawback. You can’t eat ’em. And I imagine an awful lot of mothers today would not have rebelled if you’d sent ’em a ham. Yeah, a cut of beef or a whole lamb or something.

Suppose the meat growers had been on the job and linked Mother’s Day up with their organization like the florists have. If they’d done that, instead of receiving a bunch of hollyhocks, she’d receive a cluster of pork chops.”

If you are reading this as soon as I send it, you still have time to rush to the store. Based on what I saw yesterday at Walmart, Sam’s Club and Lowe’s, there should be plenty of flowers still available. And the grocery stores have meat display cases full of beef, ham, lamb, and pork chops. If you wait until tomorrow, the flowers might be half price. But not the meat.

I intended to also write about Henry Ford and my experience with the “engine light” flashing on my F-150. But I’ll save that for another Weekly Comments.

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