Christmas Remembrances

            While I was wrapping gifts in colorful Christmas paper, I suddenly had a yearning for some Kentucky Fried Chicken. I am not sure if it was an actual hunger or whether the memory of Christmastime with my grandparents Edson and Anna Beck. They were in their mid-eighties by this time and what to get them for the holiday became a problem for my wife Cindy and me. Mom told me that when she helped Grandma clean their bedrooms, they still had clothing wrapped in their cellophane just as they came from the stores. They were stacked neatly in their dresser drawers.

            They’d reached the age when Grandma didn’t decorate the house for Christmas any longer. Gift buying for them became more and more difficult, until I learned they liked Col. Sanders’ secret recipe. After that, it was easy. I would go the Connellsville, Pennsylvania restaurant and buy a bucket of chicken with all of the fixings about a week before Christmas. Kentucky Fried chicken was a gift that they enjoyed and that they used. Because they ate so little, they were able to dine on it for entire week. At least, we never found any chicken tucked away in cellophane in their drawers.

            My wife and I also began to buy a Christmas tree for them. Not one of the large ones, but the ones that were about fourteen inches high. They were sold with a few decorative bulbs already on it. That would be their Christmas display. Granddad would water it and keep it in the basement after the holiday and when spring arrived, he would plant it in their back yard.

            My brother-in-law Doug Basinger and my sister Kathy bought my grandparents house and has remodeled it. The house looks wonderful. Doug occasionally complains about the pines in the back yard. There must be ten of them that have grown quite large and overshadow his garden.

            In another posting, I may share later is about the Nativity set I bought for them. Grandma kept it up all year and claimed the coveted spot on top of their T.V. I now have it and show it off each Christmas.

An Elastic Christmas Tradition

One incident in my married life turned into a Christmas tradition. It happened early in our marriage to Cindy Morrison Beck. As with most young couples who are first starting out finding a place to live and stretching the pay check to cover all of our bills caused us to be penny pinchers. We made do with many items that were nearing the end of their expected useful life. Leftovers were a normal meal fare. Generic black and white cans of food sometimes found their way into our pantry and clothing that had seen better days were worn at home.

One day as I sat in my recliner in the living room of our second hand mobile home, Cindy walked by me, wearing only her underwear and brassiere. She was headed towards the kitchen and I noticed that the cloth part of her cotton panties was partially separated from the elastic waist band in several places. It made her look as though she was wearing an empty gun holster on her hip.

I said, “I think you need to buy some new underwear.”

She replied, “They’re still okay. I can still wear them for a little while longer.”

Returning to the bedroom, I noticed the other side was loose, sagging and flapping in the breeze as well. If anything, the pouch on that side could have held a larger caliber pistol and I said, “Surely we can afford new gutchies for you.”

“They’re perfectly fine for me to wear around the house. Only you and I can see them.”

A few minutes later as she returned still clad in the same drawers. I reached out, poked my fingers into the breaches of her britches, and tugged hard. The connecting thread unraveled fastening the elastic to the rest of the underwear pulled loose and much of the cotton brief hung down.

Those undies were history. There was no way she could ever wear them again. Because Cindy hated to mend things, it would take something just short of a miracle for them to ever be wearable again. She disliked mending so much, that she “repaired” some of her clothing with safety pins. For some reason, she liked to sew new clothing, but not mending.

With the ruined bloomers barely more than the elastic encircling band her waist, she grabbed the remaining material up and called over her shoulder as she left to change, “Now you’ll have to buy me new underwear.”

And I did. Every year for Christmas…Cindy got new underwear. It was tradition.

Butter Me Up

As I was making my breakfast the other morning, I was reminded of several of my relatives and how they used to apply butter to their bread or toast. My first recollection is of my home and how the stick of oleo rested on a saucer that my mom, Sybil would extract from the refrigerator and place in the middle of the table. Rock hard, we would have to scrape the butter knife along its top, shaving off a thin curl of the nearly unyielding margarine to make it somewhat spreadable. Yet it always remained solid enough to tear holes in your bread. If we had toast, we could let the heat of toast soften the curl before spreading.

The second person I remembered was my mother-in-law, Retha Morrison. When she visited and I made breakfast, she wanted her have toast lightly buttered. She always asked me to apply the butter to it, only wanting a very light skim of the butter to the surface. If we ate at a restaurant, she didn’t trust the staff and asked for dry toast and butter to spread her own.

Just the opposite was my grandfather, Raymond Miner. A farmer by day and a coal miner at night, he and my grandmother Rebecca churned their own butter. Granddad would milk the cows and save the cream for Grandma to pour it into her old wooden churn. The churn had paddles on the inside and a crank handle on the outside. The splashing of the cream was eventually replaced with mounds of pale yellow butter. Packed into a rectangular wooden mold, Gram would wrap the butter in waxed paper to sell or for her family to use. Granddad loved butter and most often spread a layer of it nearly an eighth of inch thick across the entire slice of Gram’s homemade bread before he started to enjoy whatever food Gram made.

Another spreadable memory of mine is of my uncle Theodore “Ted” Miner. He was meticulous almost to the point of being a fanatic when applying anything spreadable to his bread. It didn’t matter whether it was butter or Miracle Whip or whether it was jelly or anything spreadable, it had to cover the entire top of the bread from crust edge to crust edge. I’ve made myself hungry. I think I’ll go and make breakfast.

Christmas Traditions

There was a time quite a few years ago when my house was filled with the scent of pine and many other savory aromas as the Christmas holiday drew nearer. Now I have an artificial tree that looks great, but alas the smell of the great outdoors is no longer present. The tradition of bringing a live tree into my house passed away at the same time my uncle Theodore Miner passed away. He and I would go roaming through a natural growing pine covered forest near my grandparent Miner’s farm to cut a tree for my grandmother and one for my family.

Finding a perfect tree for each of us was a real chore. These pines grew wild and were only shaped by the winds and whims of nature. Armed only with a small saw, Ted and I searched through the wooded area for likely candidates often finding one that was too small or one that had flat or large bare spots. Many were eventually rejected and we walked on. My grandmother lived in an old farmhouse with twelve foot tall ceilings, so Ted had more leeway than I did choosing a tree.

My wife Cindy was very choosey with ours. The Christmas tree had to be full at the bottom and the star would have to brush the ceiling of our mobile home as it perched on the top. This created a problem for me. When I wandered among the trees of the grove, sometimes my judgment was off and I would have to lop off some of the tree I chose when I got home. One time to get the height I needed, I chose a very bushy tree. The height was right on, but the bottom branches spread out and filled half the width of our mobile home. We had to be careful where we walked not to brush against it and knock off the ornaments.

Today an artificial tree has replaced it. The ornaments we bought for our children over the years are now in their homes on their trees, although my tree is far from bare. With white lights, garland, and ornaments collected over the years, I can barely see the green of the needles.

The tradition that’s now replaced eating the Christmas meal at my parent’s house is the gathering at my sister Kathy Basinger and her husband Doug’s home for Christmas brunch. Their beautiful home was the house of our Grandparent’s Beck. Gathering there seems like the tradition is still being carried on. I’m wishing a very Merry Christmas to all of my readers, friends, and family.

O Christmas Tree

As I undertook the Herculean task of decorating my artificial Christmas tree this year, my memory was stirred with many of the ornaments. Although most of the ornaments my wife Cindy and I bought for our children over the years were given to them when they started their own homes, there are still some that were made for us. Cotton ball sheep or snowmen, Popsicle stick scrolls, and felt lions all have claimed spots on the tree. The star is one my sister found for me that is the same as the one that lit my parents Carl and Sybil’s tree. It has 5 points, made of frosted plastic, and has red edging.

The one bulb that I claimed from my parent’s stash came up missing several years back and my sister was able to locate the same bulb. It was gold and sort of mushroom shaped, but because it was so unusual, it always caught my eye.

There are a few owl ornaments from my mother-in-law, Retha Morrison. My wife Cindy didn’t like mice, so of course there are several of those hanging on the tree. A peach pit carved to look like a basket is the remembrance of my father-in-law, Bud Morrison’s skill. I have been given almost 6 animals with stethoscopes or dressed as nurses. A tiny dove sits on a plastic ice cube. Several penguins, a couple of Snoopys, and a small bottle of hot sauce dangle from different branches. Two canoes, a tour boat, dozens of jingle bells, and crystal and Lucite icicles hang from the branch tips.  A colorful Cloisonné ball and 2 heavy Cloisonné bells claim thicker branches closer to the center of the tree. Bead, metal, and natural fiber wreaths with either pipe cleaner or ribbon bows find niches on the branches. Handmade wooden hearts trimmed in lace and ribbon. A half of a walnut shell cradles a swaddles bead baby and is nestled behind icy white garland. A menagerie of cartoon animals, carousel animals, and birds has found a perch in needled nests. Small stockings of felt and crocheted yarn, snowflakes of metal, beads, and tatted lace help to fill the bare spots. A small ceramic mug with Cindy’s name hangs beside an angel stenciled with my name. Stars, hearts, and crosses of crystal, a wooden chair stacked with books, and oh yes, even a commode all have become heirloom ornaments.

Some trees have a certain color or a type of ornament theme. I guess mine does too. It’s become a tree of precious family memories.

Memories of Butchering on the Farm

Sometime between Thanksgiving and New Years Day, aunts, uncles, and cousins would gather at my grandfather Raymond and Grandmother Rebecca’s farm to complete the annual task of butchering 2 hogs and a bull. The decision to butcher depended on the weather. It was the food my grandparents needed for the winter months. Everyone that was old enough had a job to do to complete the tasks at hand. As with most old time farmers, very little went to waste. Sausage and hamburger were made from the bits of meat and fat cut and scraped from the animal’s bones. Later, as I grew older, I helped with this process with one of my uncles.

At one time, before they had a freezer, the meat was canned and stored in a section of their dark, cobwebbed basement on homemade, rough sawn board shelves. It was a dingy area that had a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling from a wire. The jars of beef had metal canning lids while the pork sausage has a thick layer of fatty grease to seal the jars.

When I was very young, I tore off strips of adhesive tape for my mom Sybil to fasten the freezer paper after it was folded around steaks of beef or pork. Instead of using the serrated edge of the freezer paper box, she used a butcher knife to slice through the thick white paper with the aplomb of a Samurai Warrior with the blade flashing in the light. After she’d cut a stack of papers, she’d use a long handled fork to arrange the meat, then fold the paper to make an enveloping package with the skill of an skilled Origami master. My job was to tear adhesive tape into length and place them on the edge of my grandma’s white and red granite topped kitchen table ready for my mom when she reached for a piece.

As I readied some meat for the freezer yesterday, I tore the tape into useable strips as I sealed the venison into the folded freezer paper envelopes. The feel of the adhesive transported me back to that time sixty plus years ago. I could remember how sore my young fingers became as the tape tugged at my tender fingers, but the important thing is that I have those memories. My hands are now roughened and calloused, but those recollections still remain fresh and tender.

Bah, Humbug A fictional story I wrote because my daughter made a Grinch decoration for my door.

We just happened to live next door to the meanest man in town. He’d never put up a single colored light or Christmas decoration, ever. He’d call the cops if carolers came onto his property and he’d threaten me if one of my toys ended up in his yard.

His house was neat and clean, but it was stark and bare. He was older and rarely came outside other than to cut the grass or shovel snow off his walkway. He didn’t plant flowers or erect bird houses. Most people avoided him and his yard. Even the postman’s visits were infrequent. It was as though his home was a black hole for happiness.

He chased girl scouts off with a broom when they tried to ply their cookies. My mom tried to be a good neighbor by occasionally taking baked goods to him, but soon quit when he didn’t return the plates and she had to buy new dishes.

Everyone began to call him the Grinch. One night, someone sneaked onto his lawn and leaned a sign against the side of the porch that read “The Grinch lives here.” The porch was high enough that he couldn’t  see it from inside and because the Grinch rarely came outside, the sign stayed. He had no idea that the whole town was smiling at his expense.

At the beginning of December, when colored lights began to appear on other homes in the neighborhood, the Grinch’s house remained unadorned except for the sign.

One day a stray wandered onto his porch. The dog refused to leave even though the Grinch would douse it with water or swing a broom at it. Each morning the dog would be curled at his front door and each morning the dog would run partway down the walk and stop. The dog would turn, wag its tail, and cock its head to the side to stare at the man on the porch. Eventually the Grinch would grow tired and go back inside. The dog would disappear, only to return at night and curl up at the Grinch’s door.

After several days things began to change… slightly. Oh, the Grinch would come out and chase the dog. The dog would go to the bottom of the steps before it would loll its tongue and wag its tail. The Grinch would stand a bit longer to talk to the dog.

Soon the Grinch began to sit on the top step of the porch and talk to the dog. From his seat, there was no way he would have missed seeing the sign, but the sign stayed.

One day, I heard the Grinch in his shed sawing, sanding, and hammering. Then it was quiet.

I was outside playing when I saw the Grinch leave his house and saw him return with a can of paint and some supplies in a bag from the local hardware store. He again disappeared into his shed. I went back inside my house to get warm and didn’t see when he came out.

In the morning the old man stepped onto his porch and tossed the dog something. The dog caught it, lay down, and began to gnaw. It was a bone. The Grinch walked to his shed and I watched as he erected a spotlight in his front yard, running an electric cord into his basement. He had the whole town talking. The question on everyone’s mind, “What was going on?”

At dusk, he carried a large object out of his shed and placed it beside the Grinch sign. When he turned on the spotlight and I could see he’d made a wooden six foot high Grinch to stand by the sign. It was his turn to laugh surprising the town people surprised by turning their joke into his.