‘How’s Mom?’: A Note From the Other Side of Charles Barkley as a Sixer

Getty Charles Barkley

I think about Charles Barkley on this and every Mother’s Day … and before that line lingers too long in the ether and it gets weird, I should probably explain.

It’s been a month shy of 16 years since my mom passed away unexpectedly, and while you miss loved ones even more on occasions such as this, there’s a desire, too, to balance the sadness by recalling some cool moments.

And Charles had a role in one of my mom’s favorites. Yes, the Charles who was so reviled as a Sixer, sometimes even within Philadelphia. That Charles.

To make a short story long, the whole thing began when I was co-hosting a radio show for a night. It was the mid-to-late 1980s, and the Bird-Parish-McHale-DJ Celtics were a hot item — and an even hotter ticket at the old Boston Garden.

A caller asked if, in my job as Boston Herald beat writer covering the team, I was getting free seats for my family and friends. I replied that, because of ethics, I would never even think to ask. I’d heard of others having the ability to buy tickets from the team, but I looked at even this as a breach of journalistic protocol because the games were all sold out and the club would be doing you a favor.

I noted to the main host that my mom was a big basketball fan, but the last time she’d been to a Celtics game was more than 10 years earlier when my high school played a conference matchup before the game. (That’s how the old C’s worked group sales in the pre-Bird days.)

A few days later, a season ticket holder who’d worked for the Herald said he’d heard the radio show and mentioned that he wouldn’t be able to use his front row seats for the Sunday afternoon game against Philadelphia. “I’d really like your mother to go,” he said.

Big Moment With Sir Charles

So it was that I was walking around the edge of the original parquet floor that day to make sure Polly B. had no problems getting into the city from the North Shore. The Sixers were warming up, and as I walked by Barkley, I said, “Hey, Charles, watch the cussing today. My mom’s in the front row.”

He turned, spotted the woman waving at me, and raced to her. Charles shook her hand and said, “You look like a nice lady, Mrs. Bulpett. I’m sure it’s not your fault he turned out this way.”

My sainted mother smiled and replied, “You’re right. He was adopted.”

Shot back Charles, “No, you FOUND him.”

They laughed. They hugged. Charles told her it was nice meeting her and told me I was lucky.

‘How’s Mom?’

In the ensuing years when the Celtics would play the Sixers or his later teams, she’d ask, “How’s my son Charles doing?” Charles would ask, “How’s mom?”

I appreciated Charles as a basketball player. I enjoyed our conversations then and even later when he joined the media. But each year at this time, I just like that he made my mom smile and gave her a moment we could revisit.