I ran into this guy the other day who said, regarding Mother's Day, “You aren't going to write that sentimental French-Irish stuff about your Sainted Mother again, are you?” This made me inquire about his own mother, whom he described as “The Mother from Hell,” which made me wonder why.

“She made me make my bed,” he said. “I had to haul wood. Shovel the front walk and driveway. Mow the lawn. Help with the dishes. Take turns cleaning house. Also, she threatened to wash my mouth out with soap, made me leave the table if I didn't mind my manners, even gave me over to the nuns. I was warped for life.”

I could commiserate. I, too, was treated cruelly by my mother, who insisted that we pick up our rooms and make our beds before leaving the house. I too hauled wood, shoveled snow, mowed lawns, did dishes, cleaned house. We all did, each in our turn. And anyone who flouted basic table manners was up and out.

This was the same mother who tortured me by taking me a mile and a half up the road and throwing me into a fetid swamp, expecting me to appear all mud at the shed door to be hosed down, with enough fish for supper. Cruel and unusual punishment, that. How come nobody called child welfare?

And this was the same mother who, after Paul Beloin unintentionally destroyed my right knee's anterior cruciates in a tussle, forced me to sit on the kitchen counter and lift weights with my right foot to build the exterior muscles up to compensate. Today, that knee is relatively sound and strong, but still, oh, the ruthlessness of it all.

And this is the mom who, when I came home with my nose in my mitten after a neighborhood friend had accidentally cut it almost off with a snow shovel, wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and said, calmly, “Get in the Jeep,” and drove me down to Doc Gifford's to get it sewn back on, during which Gifford, as everyone called him, hummed little ditties and, being a guy who had worked his way through McGill by doing magic shows on the side, pulled quarters and even a potato from my ears while he stitched. And, by the way, put my nose back on a little crooked, so if I now tried to find my way home blindfolded in a stiff wind I'd wind up in, maybe, Lower Quebec.

Imagine that — a mother who did not emote or collapse in a crisis, did not seek immediate counseling for the both of us, a mother that, unlike Bill Clinton, didn't feel my pain. I grew up deprived and in an emotional desert, that's what.

And this was the mother who left the household budget at practically zero by insisting that my father pony up $50 to send me, at age 14, on a fishing trip to Canada with Arthur Hughes. Now there's a case of family neglect if ever there was one. But none of the neighbors called 911, perhaps because back then there was no 911.

And finally, this was the Mommy Dearest who gave me over to the nuns. Sister Mary Edward, who loved poetry and stories about bears, was the kindly one. But the others were stern taskmasters who cracked me on the back of the hand with a stiff curved ruler whenever I got out of line and made me learn my multiplication tables and a whole lot more. I went into the public school at fourth grade and was light-years ahead, and thus, for a while, a social outcast, potentially scarred for life. Oh, the cruelty.

The Mother from Hell, indeed. The mother who, I firmly believe, went straight to Heaven. Thanks for it all, mom — the swamp, the mud, my crooked nose and yes including, even maybe especially, the nuns.

John Harrigan's column appears weekly in the New Hampshire Sunday News. His address is Box 39, Colebrook 03576. Email him at hooligan@ncia.net.