Talks about the olden days with my then-forty-something son turned into an argument one night when he said, “All the kids in high school thought you were the cool parents.”

“No they didn’t!”

“Yes they did!”

“But we weren’t cool parents,” I said as if I’d been accused of beating him.

“They thought you were.”

“Why on Earth would they think that?”

“I don’t know, but they did.”

“It makes no sense!”

“Maybe it was because you were always at everything,” he said.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Probably like games and concerts, and Dad was always at school talking to coaches.”

“That was our job! Taking pictures and getting stories for the paper.”

“But you liked it, and you talked to everybody,” he said in a Mr. Know-It-All way.

“You know I loved my job, and I’ve always been a talker.”

“You can say that again.”

“Besides, every kid thinks someone else’s parents are great,” I said.

Then I confessed that I’d always wanted my best friend’s parents when I was a kid.

Donna’s mother was a lawyer’s secretary, wore high heels, tweed suits, and bought Donna’s clothes at The Toggery Shop downtown. She even bought Donna a camisole when we were in sixth grade.

My mother worked at the church nursery, wore a white uniform, white nurse shoes, and made all of my clothes. Momma bought me T-shirts before I needed something more.

Donna’s father was a partner in an ad agency, wore a suit, took his jacket off when he got home, listened to classical music, smoked cigarettes, and drank a glass of liquor from a decanter.

My daddy worked at the newspaper, wore a uniform, carried a gun, watched baseball on TV in his sleeveless T-shirt, chewed tobacco, and always had a giant glass of iced tea.

When I went for lunch after church with Donna’s parents we ate at the Boulevard Cafeteria, and I could get whatever I wanted.

When Donna came to our house on Sundays Momma had beef roast, potatoes and carrots in the oven that she put on before church, and cherry pie with vanilla ice cream.

Donna told me during our 20-year high school reunion that she’d always wanted my parents instead of hers.

She remembered that my Daddy used to pick us four girls up from school when we were freshmen. She said he was always in good humor, except when Edith slammed the car door real hard every time she got out. Donna also recalled him warning us to stay together when we walked across the street to get into the car. “Stay away from those * % Al* boys!” he’d say.

She said my mother was always there when we got home from elementary school, and had just-baked cookies and milk for us.

“She was the epitome of what I wanted in a mother,” Donna said, and then said she’d called my mother to pick her up at school when she’d had an accident. Momma took her to our house and had her take a bubble bath.

I never knew that.

I did know by my high school years that I had the best parents ever, even though Daddy threatened to tell my dates he’d never been able to eat mustard after he had to change my diapers when I was a baby.