Jack Balas, 2017; MOM (#1533); watercolor & ink on paper, 30" x 22"

text:
Mom would have been 90 today, and I still laugh to remember her funniest story, the day she walked me to kindergarten and on the way home all these dogs started to follow her. Frightened, she hitched a ride out from a guy passing in a milk truck. Years later we drove to Indiana Dunes one day, and she parked herself in the sand looking out at the lake and eating an apple, her jeans hitched up to her knees like a highschool girl. "You know," she told me, "I may just be older, but I feel like I'm the same person inside I've always been." ---- These days we all buy our milk in plastic jugs from the grocery. The future of APPLES, on the other hand, still looks shiny, crisp and bright.