Michael D. Davis.

The thing about my Ma is that she can get along with just about anybody. This is a quality that I do my best to emulate.

For example, my Ma works for the Department of Corrections Residential Facility in Marshalltown. She has for over 20 years now. People from all walks of life have passed through that halfway house through the decades, and my Ma maybe hasn’t gotten along with all of them, but I think I can safely assume the majority.

One of my favorite stories is when a new coworker said something to my Ma along the lines of, “There’s a scary lookin’ guy over there waving at ya.” And my Ma looked, waived, and just said something like, “Yeah, that’s so and so.”

Ya see Ma is a talker, a chatter, a storyteller. You get into a conversation with Ma and it will either last two minutes or 20. Often the phrase, “Well, I oughta get going,” will be used at least a couple of times before she actually gets going.

Another example is this week. If you are reading this in the paper, to get to this Magic Mike you will have had to skip past my front-page article about the Satanists that came to town. Well, on Monday and Tuesday as the Satanists were having their event, I stopped by multiple times, checking in, asking questions, and making sure I didn’t miss anything.

On one of these stop-ins, Ma came along. It wasn’t long before she was talking with several members of the group about a whole range of subjects. Starting with you picked a nice spot here, and where do you hail from? Before somehow finding her way to a story.

The best part of my Ma’s visit with the Satanists on Monday was her attempts to join in on the HAIL SATANs. Ya see, the entire time we were talking to different members of the group, at least one member remained reading, which was the point of their event.

And at certain points, I believe, but don’t quote me on it when Satan is mentioned, everyone would cheer in unison, “HAIL SATAN.” Then they’d just continue on with the conversation like nothing had happened. I don’t know how many times they hailed Satan while we were there, but not once did my Ma get it on time with everyone else. Every time she’d try, and be a second behind the group, cursing herself.

On Tuesday, Ma stayed in the house all day, ya know, your usual day off work activity. So, she didn’t come back up with me to see how the Satanists were doing on their second day. However, By the time I woke up, about 11, Ma had a plate of cookies made up that she wanted me to drop off to them. Ya know, as she does. I’ve written about it before, we’ve almost gotten lost just to deliver a plate of cookies. And well, between the good conversation and the chocolate chip cookies, I think she went over well with the Satanists.