The Front Row with MARK NELKE May 13, 2012

The scene: Another visit with mom on Mother's Day. A pleasant spring day for once, freshly mown grass, and flowers everywhere.

Me: Happy Mother's Day, mom!

Mom: Have you mowed the lawn?

Me: Yes, I mowed the lawn, mom. Had to wait a few days, since it seems like it's rained about every day this spring.

Mom: Have you taken out the garbage?

Me: Yes, and now when we put out the garbage on garbage day, they give us two cans - one for garbage, one for recycling.

Mom: Recycling?

Me: Yeah, someone thought that would help the environment, and cut down on the amount of garbage people threw away. So stuff like plastic containers - bottles, milk jugs, stuff like that - can be recycled and used again.

Mom: So you're drinking milk out of the same jug someone else used before you? Yuk!

Me: Well, sort of, but not really. They tell us it's OK though - just like they tell us it's OK that our country is trillions of dollars in debt, and the days of filling up the gas tank for just a few bucks are long gone.

Mom: How are your 49ers doing?

(Mom was also a big 49ers fan - probably because I was a big 49ers fan. She was probably a Rams fan too, since my older brother was a Rams fan. You don't realize it at the time, but as you figure out later, that's part of what being a mom is all about.)

Me: The 49ers are doing great. Finally, they made the playoffs last year for the first time in nine years. And the team they beat, the Saints, it was discovered later that one of their coaches put a bounty on some of the 49ers.

Mom: A bounty?

Me: Yeah. Remember that line from the classic movie, Slap Shot, where the owner of the Chiefs says, "You can't put a bounty on a man's head!" Well, that's what the Saints did, and they got in big trouble for it. Not just because of the 49ers game — they were apparently doing this for years.

Mom: I hope whoever was behind all this got sent to their room for a long, long time.

Me: Oh, they did. The commissioner of the NFL came down hard on the Saints. He sent the coach to his room for a year, and punished a bunch of other coaches and players too.

Mom: Didn’t Bum Phillips used to coach the Saints?

(Mom also liked the Oilers back in the day, but I’m not sure if it was because she liked Bum Phillips and his big ol’ cowboy hat, or because the Oilers had a catchy team jingle at the time.)

Mom: “ ... We’re the Hous-ton Oi-lers, Hous-ton Oi-lers, Houston Oilers Number One! ... ”

Me: Yeah, they just don’t write ’em like that anymore, mom.

Me: Mom, there’s a funny email going around the Internet about Idaho’s football team.

Mom: What’s an Internet?

Me: Oh, that’s right, that came along a bit later ... anyway, someone “released” the 2013 WAC football schedule, and since Idaho and New Mexico State might be the only two football teams left in the conference by then, they are “scheduled” to play each other eight times — four in Moscow, four at New Mexico State — and then they would play again, for a ninth time, in the WAC championship game, at a site to be determined.

Mom: New Mexico State has a football team?

Me: Yeah, you’re not the only one who is surprised by that.

Mom: Is that store still there in Sandpoint where I used to buy those moccasins?

Me: No, that IGA got torn down a long time ago. And get this — remember that bypass they were talking about way back when? Looks like it’s finally going to happen.

Mom: I miss that old store. That was always a fun Sunday drive.

At that point a gust of wind came up, blowing some freshly mown grass onto the small cement slab. I crouched down and brushed it off.

Me: Well, time to head off to work, mom. See ‘ya again soon. Love you!

Mom: Make sure your room is cleaned first.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.