Etymology of Mighty Leg

On several occasions (here and here) I have referred to Mom as “Mighty Leg.” Our family speculated that after the polio weakened her arms, her legs grew mighty to compensate.

As proof, when I was a child, we played the Mighty Leg game.

There wasn’t a lot of physical contact with Mom, because it wasn’t her nature, and because her arms were disabled. However, for a time, Mom was in an upper body cast from scoliosis surgery. She spent a lot of time in bed.

So, there she was, in bed, at toddler level. We’d enter the room at the foot of the bed, climb into the bed, and crawl our way up her legs in order to reach the body cast and the big reward: playing Mom Bongos on the body cast. We could pound our tiny hands all over frail little Mom, make lots of noise, and not actually hurt her at all.

I suspect Mom was not as into Mom Bongos as we were, because she countered with Mighty Leg. As we crawled up her shins she would sweep her legs to the side and knock us off the bed. We would scream with laughter and try again. Then, on the next try, Mom would raise her legs high enough that we had to hold on until she shook us off. If we tried again Mom would literally toss us off the bed. I mean, she didn’t kick us against a wall, but we were airborne, at least until we bounced off the floor.