Undressing at Mama Kathys

By Walt Newlin


One night I had decided to visit Mama with no real mission in mind. Just get the pipes cleaned and then head downtown. I remember walking in from the front room and Mama starts to undress me and then stops. She is looking at my tee shirt, which is bright yellow with blue lettering. On the front it says " West Chester State Rams" and a picture of a ram. She then says to me "Isn't West Chester near Kennett Square? I was floored, how the hell does she know where Kennett Square is let alone West Chester. They are both in Southeastern Pa. I said yes they are about 10 miles from each other and how the hell did she know this. She then tells me that she was back there in fall of 1969 visiting her daughter, who was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. I thought you got to be shitting me. I'm stuck in this hole and she was just back and her daughter lives there. That was home for me. Mama and I became good friends after that and often had conversations about her daughter and Kennett Square. I did get my pipes cleaned that night and still think fondly of Mama K.