i’m sitting in my sister’s great room up on the mountain, Signal Mountain outside of Chattanooga. It is Christmas Eve.
Maureen, my sister Martha, and her husband Todd are getting ready for the 5:00 Children’s Christmas Service at the Signal Crest Methodist Church. The Duff’s three grandchildren and one great granddaughter are in the Christmas Drama. Christmas Eve Dinner at the Duffs will follow. Martha will play the bells at the midnight service. Right now, Martha and i are the only ones who will attend both.
After all, she is my sister.
i have put the wood in the fireplace for lighting when the crowd returns from the service. There will be 13 of us. The Christmas tree lights are on. The sun shines through the multiple trees on the down slope on the back of their home. About the same number for the fabulous Christmas Eve Dinner at the Duffs.
i sit thinking Christmas memories. My wife and sister have already sparked one memory. The crew came last night for Martha’s spaghetti and Maureen’s salad. Before the bunch got here, i watched the two in the kitchen as i helped set the tables. It took me back. Growing up, our Christmases were at our house, our aunt and uncle’s house in Red Bank, another suburb of Chattanooga, or at our other aunt and uncle’s house in Lebanon. The three sisters, Mother, Aunt Evelyn, and Aunt Bettye Kate jointly prepared the Christmas dinner. Whomever was the hostess was the head cook, but all three contributed. Watching last night’s preparations, i was taken back to over six decades ago.
It was a lovely memory. i will entertain many more before we leave on Friday to stay overnight near the Nashville airport to catch our flight back to the Southwest corner on Saturday.
i hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas filled with cherished memories.
Looking down on the Duff’s great room before Christmas Eve Eve.
It is time for my annual post about an inglorious day for Christmas celebration. It revolves around a Christmas sign i made and hoisted years ago and continues as our only outdoor Christmas decoration.
i thought about that tonight. i grilled Italian Sausage for supper. Maureen did the hard work of preparing the mashed potatoes, the peas, the bread with olive oil, and another of her exquisite salads.
It was cool for most of the country, cold we would call it. i started the charcoal in the low 50’s, sipped on my martini as i watched the grill heat up. My potpourri of music was playing on my bluetooth speaker as sunset fell below our slope. i had on a zippered sweatshirt. Saturn sparkled above the western horizon over my right shoulder. The silver dollar of a moon collaborated with Jupiter to the east on my left shoulder. The music played on.
It wasn’t Christmas songs, but i thought of Noel. Our neighborhood has become an amusement park of decorations. Lights dominate the night. Yesterday, as Maureen rode with me to the Bonita Golf Club so i could have their un-gussied up bowl of chili with a beer. i pointed out that there had been several mass executions in our neighborhoods. Santas, Grinches, Rudolphs, and other sundry Christmas characters had been drained and were flat on the ground. Miraculously, they will rise when the homeowner pumps air into them again before the brutal slayings occur again at daybreak, over and over.
My “NOEL” sign seems sadly lacking, but in a way, satisfying because i made it, did not buy it from Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Costco, or Amazon. You see, i really am a curmudgeon and Christmases past with a holly wreath on the door and a cedar tree decorated in the corner of the living room, both installed about a week before and removed the day after Christmas seemed…well, more reverent to me.
As i tended the grill closely, i saw this wonderful woman employing her many skills in the light of the kitchen. Maureen is a beautiful woman. Her beauty changes with age but does not diminish. Her caring for others goes beyond that beauty. It remains amazing to me she loves me. i am a lucky man.
This brings me back to my “NOEL” sign. When i originally made it to honor one of my previous fathers-in-law, it was heavy, one by two wood sign with holes drilled for the lights to push through. This is the one in the story. Then, i made a lighter one. But i did not drill holes, i simply strung lights on the letters.
i was not pleased with my efforts and consulted Maureen about taking it down and redoing it to make the letters more legible in the night. Maureen, considering the amount of work i had put in, told me it looked neat, artsy. She’s the expert in that kind of thing.
After i hung it up this year, i was complaining about the lights not conforming to the letters again, this time she agreed. i realized she had been yanking my chain to reduce my work and make me feel good. This year’s results;
Next year should be interesting.
It is time to return to the Christmas season day of infamy story:
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Have you ever had one of those days when everything turned into an embarrassment? I had a champion day like that several years ago.
It started innocently while I hung our outdoor decoration, a home-made “NOEL” sign, from the eave of our garage, hoping to get it up before my wife’s friends arrived for their Christmas dinner.
Maureen and her six friends have been meeting monthly for dinners for 15-plus years. They had this December dinner catered, did it up right. It was Maureen’s turn to be hostess.
It was dark when I began. I was at the top of my step ladder attaching the second of two wires from the sign to hooks secured to the eave when the ladder lurched and toppled. I grabbed a metal ornamental grating above the garage door.
There I hung, my arm intertwined with the “O” of the sign. If I tried to drop, the sign could catch my arm and do some pretty bad stuff.
I yelled, but Maureen had Christmas carols at top volume and didn’t hear. I tried to think of what to do while simultaneously wondering how long I could hold on. The dog wandered underneath, occasionally looking up as if I was a very strange person hanging there.
After several minutes, a neighbor’s son and friend pulled into the driveway several houses away. As they emerged, I swallowed my pride and yelled “Help.”
At first, they could not discern who was calling. Then they spotted me and came to help. The dog decided to protect me and began barking threateningly. The boys hesitated. I assured them the only danger was being licked to death. They finally righted the ladder and helped me down.
I thanked them profusely and then studied whether I should tell Maureen or not. Now that I was back on solid ground, I decided it was too funny not to tell her. She was incredulous and not particularly amused.
I did not realize my embarrassment for the night was just beginning.
While Maureen made final arrangements for her dinner, our daughter, Sarah, and I went to a local spot for supper. The little place was an oasis of sorts in Bonita, where there were only Mexican, Italian, and fast food restaurants. The attraction was different, having an interesting variety on the menu and wide-range of ales and beers for golfers finishing a round across the street.
When we arrived, two couples were at tables and three guys sat at the bar. As we neared the end of our meal, the largest of the guys at the bar walked to the door and then turned back. I noticed his eyes seemed glazed. Then, he walked back to the bar.
Suddenly, this guy and the one on the other side grabbed the guy in the middle off his stool, slammed him into the wall and started pummeling him with their fists. The three male diners, me (instinctively) included, approached from one side and two cooks approached from the back. Sarah had retreated to the door with the two lady diners. I grabbed the big guy. He spun and fell backward, slamming us into our table, knocking it over with shattering glass. It gave me some leverage, and we spun to the floor with me on top and knocking the wind out of the big guy. The other two diners helped me hold him until he calmed down. The cooks had quelled the other assailant. The two left quietly followed by the guy they had pounded.
Even though the waitress wanted us to not pay our bill, we paid and left for home. On the way, I talked to my daughter about what I should have done (directed her outside before joining the fray) and what she should do the next time if she were ever in a place where a fight broke out (get out and away and not come back until she was sure it was over). i admonished her not to spoil her mother’s dinner party, adding i would tell her mother after the guests had departed. Sarah nodded.
I was feeling pretty good as we arrived home. Then Sarah dashed out of the car, ran into the house and yelled to her mother in front of the caterer and her six friends dressed to the nines amidst fine china, Christmas decorations, and haut cuisine, “Mom, Dad got in a fight in a bar.”
Some days, I just can’t get a break.
May your holiday season be embarrassment free.
May all of you have a most wonderful and amazing Christmas Season, and “Please, Please, Please (as James Brown once sang) remember the reason for the season,
Yesterday, Maureen went to lunch with several of her close friends who once were known as the “Seven Sisters.” The numbers have diminished slightly but the feeling is still the same. It was a long lunch.
i had a number of errands to run and items to get done at home. i was glad to have the time. But as i went out on my first errand, i got a whim. i decided it was justified as it satisfied one item on my check list: a walk. Several of my phalanx of doctors have noted one of the reasons my old man’s back problems are mollified is walking a lot. They encouraged me to do more.
i normally walk over three miles on a route i began as a run. Then, it was a poor replacement for my runs during my last Navy tour when, at lunch, i would run across the street from the Naval Amphibious School, cut through some ugly condo towers and hit the beach for just over a six mile run. i did that run nearly every week day for three and a half years. But my run at home had some steep hills and my age was beginning to show. Then the docs told me i should stop running and walk: brittle old running bones. So now i walk, and walking on surface streets can be a bit boring.
So, this morning, i decided to get away from it all. i drove to Balboa Park, walked through the Prado down to the Organ Pavilion and entered the Japanese Friendship Garden.
i showed my park pass and entered into another land. The Garden, originally the Japanese Tea House, was established in 1915 for the San Diego’s Panama-Pacific Exposition. It was reborn in the 1990’s as is a tribute to San Diego and its relationship with her sister city Yokohama. There are roughly two miles of walking paths through the twelve acres of the garden.
What a garden. It is like walking into a temple honoring nature and contemplation. In the middle of a weekday morning, the visitors are sparse, like having it to myself. The garden reflects Japanese tradition of gardens going back hundreds of years. There are out loops that take me to a place to just sit and relax, perhaps to ponder, perhaps to not think at all but just be a peace for a moment.
There’s an exhibit hall that makes me feel like i just walked into a Japanese home with a wall to wall window looking out on a manicured sculpted gravel garden. A bench inside allows one to sit and contemplate. The path winds gently down to the bottom of the canyon folded around a stream that gurgles calmness as it flows.
Of course, there are koi ponds. In the spring, the 200 cherry trees will be blooming in their grove. We will go there then.
When Maureen returned from her lunch and i from my whim, we vowed to make it a regular thing. Peace and contemplation are not a bad habit to pursue, even on a whim.
Caleb Lucas watched the group quietly but with interest sitting in the back corner of the room.
Earlier while they dined, he had told stories and laughed with them. Then, several of the guys, his sons and sons-in-law told their stories, and the women, his daughters and daughters-in-law joined the story telling.
He realized his stories were dated and held little interest for the rest of the group. He didn’t want to detract from the gathering.
It was an annual celebration for which he looked forward every year. Both of his wives had died young. This was a get together to celebrate the mothers’ lives. They held the dinner each year at the first of summer in the home where they all grew up. Caleb still lived in the five-bedroom sprawling farmhouse on the outskirts of New Palestine.
As he became silent, he studied the group. He loved them all.
But he noticed how things had changed. He had dressed for the occasion. He was in his dress shirt and trousers with nice leather dress shoes. In place of the tie he had worn on many of these occasions, he wore a sports jacket. As he had realized with the conversation, he found dressing up for such occasions was no longer a requirement.
The women wore pants and nice blouses except for one, his daughter, who wore a tee shirt. There were no dresses or skirts.
The men wore jeans and sneakers with no socks. If they weren’t in colored tee-shirts with logos, they wore casual shirts that were not tucked in. Two had on baseball caps worn with the bill backwards and the adjustment straps across their foreheads.
He did not fault them. This type of dress had become the style of the day. Men, even old folks (except him) never wore ties to church. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a woman in a skirt.
The conversation was filled with laughter. The group talked of recently watched movies and their favorite actors and actresses. Caleb did not recognize any of the names. He had not been to a movie theater in years and had quit watching them on the television except for some his old favorites.
The discussion turned to music. Again, Caleb did not recognize the songs, singers, or groups. He had been a disc jockey on a local station while going to college and been known as an expert for naming songs, artists, and even labels but that had been a long time ago. It was still the music to which he listened.
Someone brought up a new book and the conversation took a new turn with the same result: Caleb did not recognize any of the titles or authors. He was reading and rereading his library of older classics.
Caleb realized he was pleased that the cell phones stayed out of use during the dinner. He had one and used it but wished he could just toss it.
As his family continued to celebrate, Caleb sat in the corner contemplating how he was pretty out of the picture, outdated, a dinosaur. As the lively conversation continued, Caleb turned his view to the photos of his two wives in photos on the mantle. They had been wonderful to him. He still hurt from losing both of them.
He nodded silently as if he had reached a decision.
The party went on for about another hour. The family individually hugged Caleb as they departed. Joshua, Caleb’ oldest son remarked as the siblings walked to their cars, “You know, I don’t think I can remember him being that emotional since his wives passed away,”
Around ten the next morning, Caleb’s youngest son Jared stopped by to help clean up after the party. The door was unlocked.
He entered and called for Caleb. There was no answer. Jared went to the master bedroom. Caleb was not there. The bed was made. The dining room and kitchen was spotless after Caleb cleaned up from the evening. Everything was in order, the way Caleb always left it in the mornings after breakfast. Jared went through the rest of the house. No one was anywhere to be found, even in outbuildings. The entire house was spotless.
Jared walked outside to the garage. Caleb’s pickup was there.
Jared called his wife, then his brothers and sisters. No one had heard anything from Caleb. Nothing. They called the authorities and reported a missing person.
Caleb’s children and in-laws returned to the family home and searched throughout and wandered all over the 120 acres with no luck. His youngest daughter, Helen, noticed the frame that held the photo of her mother and Caleb’s other wife were lying flat on the mantle. The pictures were gone.
The police looked for signs of him at the bus station, the taxi companies, Uber, and Lyft.
The family went to the one room cabin on the lake. No one had been there and Caleb’s fishing boat was in the dock. The authorities searched the lake and the brush around it but found nothing.
The sons, daughters, and in-laws gathered at his house again and went through the evening events to see if they might find some clue as to what happened. Joshua remarked that when he got home that previous evening, he had noted a cool, heavy wind blowing off the lake, but didn’t think there was a connection, just an odd event.
Perhaps you have noticed i have not posted very much lately. There are all sorts of reasons.
i am considering dropping out for a while and working on the six books i would like to publish but never will because it is a heck of a lot of work; i haven’t broken even on the two books i have published, let alone making some money; would like my daughters and grandchildren to have the option of pursuing publishing them when i’m gone or dumping them into the round file (a term computer wizards will not likely understand).
i have had a lot of things going on in our lives: good things, bad things, things that took up a lot of time.
Most of all, i’ve been having difficulty in writing. It hasn’t been a writing block per se, but i would start, wander off subject, stop, reread and, yep, go to that round file.
But in the last week, i got some ideas, started writing, found it pleasurable to put ink on paper except there is no ink on paper, and actually liked what i wrote. So here is a start:
the fire lies gently on the embers twilight has yielded to the softness of the dark he sits with the light of the fire in his father’s rocking chair he will rise before sunrise there will be a sharpness in the cold snap that comes with daybreak the hay fields laid low will shine with the light frost as he puts each foot forward heading for the barn he looks at the steel blue sky it will be a harsh winter.
