In Gifts for Mother, Some See Necessity of Invention

Jay Razani says he’s hoping to start a Mother’s Day tradition with the gift he came up with last year. You can’t wear it or eat it. It doesn’t bloom, nor does it wither.

It just sits there.

Razani, 61, owner of a Reseda neon-sign shop, molded a neon heart with his wife’s name across it for Mother’s Day last year. This year, he said, he has sold about 20 of the signs, made with other women’s names.

“Neon is the best gift,” Razani said. “Not many people can have it.”

The signs were among a potpourri of unconventional Mother’s Day gifts that children and husbands were buying at San Fernando Valley shops.

Across the street from Razani’s shop, there is a psychedelic design on the front of Captain Ed’s H & H Shoppe. Among other things, the store sells “modern smoking accessories,” including all manner of pipes, which manager Bart Gilbert made a point of insisting are for the inhalation of legal substances only.

The other day, he said, two young men bought a water pipe and a hand-held pipe, with each saying the item was for his mother.

“It’s an attractive ceramic,” ilbert said as he removed the pint-sized pipe, the same model one of the men bought, from a display case.

Other mothers also were getting gifts that weren’t candy or flowers.

Marc Gulotta, a 25-year-old flying instructor at Van Nuys Airport, said a former student bought his wife two hours of instruction time--at a price of $102--as the day’s reward.

Even at the malls, candy was not in every shopping bag.

Tarzana music consultant Jay Lowry wandered through Topanga Plaza in Canoga Park looking for a gadget for his wife, Brenda.

“She wanted an adjustable, six-foot, reversible, triple-magnifying mirror and a deep-water bathwater saver,” Lowry said.

He found one.

Some men may have had more than their wives’ interests at heart. Steve Goldstein, manager of Castle Lighting on Topanga Canyon Boulevard in Canoga Park, said that, with the heat and humidity these days, his store is selling “lots of ceiling fans for Mother’s Day.”

Agoura accountant Martin Selko found his wife’s gift elsewhere in Canoga Park.

“She’s been a good mother and a good wife,” he said as he completed the purchase of a 1987 Mercedes-Benz 300E. “I’m going to put a big red ribbon around it, and, when she goes in the garage Sunday morning, it will be there.

“She’ll freak out,” he said. He added that this year’s Mother’s Day gift is “a step up” from last year’s, a trip to Hawaii.