Wonderful Words!

I’m enjoying blogging. Something I’ve done well since I said my first word is talk! To say I was precocious would be an understatement. Being the youngest of five children, with a 21 year age span from eldest to youngest, gave me personal opinion I was as grown up as any of them so make room for me!

Discussions and debates were a weekly if not nightly occurrence at our house. I liked the discussions and learned from them. The debates made me uncomfortable because, while rules were followed, tempers sometimes flared. My siblings would debate anything from the arrival of chicken or egg to whose shoe laces lasted the longest. They would debate the weather using signs of nature to support their theory or the proper way to mix paint. The topic didn’t matter as long as it could be argued from four or six points of view (as sometimes Dad and Mom got pulled in whether they wanted to or not). During the discussions, I would sit in my rocking chair rocking a doll or two and listen. Sometimes, oh wonder of wonders, Ev would smile at me and ask my opinion. Those who know me won’t be surprised to know I had one! The debates would drive me to my bed, to use dolls, and books, and imagination so I wouldn’t hear.

I remember one time being in bed listening to my siblings and their friends debate. Someone said something humorous and I started to laugh. Milo who was a particular friend of Betty’s at the time said, “She’s awake and she understands what we’re talking about!” My siblings, not surprised, thought less of him because he was surprised. Other times, I remember crying because they all sounded so angry. Floods of words with angry tones washed over me and frightened me. Dot or Dad would come in and rub my back and assure me it was something they enjoyed and everything was all right. Dot would sing to me and Dad would draw pictures in the air with his cigarette. Smoking wasn’t so taboo then.

I’ve told you about Mom and her crossword puzzles and her amazing understanding of words she couldn’t pronounce. Another source of words was Dad. He never talked down to me. For that matter, no one in my family did. I’ve mentioned Dad’s ancestors died young and he feared dying young as well. I entered his life when he was 44 years of age. He loved me a lot, but depression made him fearful of dying young and fear made him more depressed. He made sure there was distance between us so his loss would not be so hard on me. I liked him and loved him but I didn’t understand him and somewhat feared him.

There was something he did that would endear him to me no matter what. He told wonderful stories. The rest of my family read stories to me and Mom preferred the German fairy tales in their original writing which scared me to sleep just to get her to stop reading! Disney never bothered to show the birds coming to pluck out the eyes of Cinderella’s step sisters at the wedding. The Red Shoes was another story that made me wish there were no fairy tale books.

Dad would tell stories that helped with a situation, taught a lesson, or comforted with a point. One in particular I remember was around Christmas time. It was actually after Christmas because the tree was without decoration and he was soon to carry it out to the trash heap. I was so sad! He patted his knee and I curled up on his lap.

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved her Christmas tree. Christmas was over and the decorations were gone. The little girl did not want to see her Christmas tree thrown away. So, when her father took the tree out of the house, he showed her how dry it was getting and how many needles were falling off. He pointed out to her that made the tree dangerous and easily able to catch fire. He told her to put on her cap and mittens, her warmest coat and ask Mom for some bread.

When they carried the tree out, the little girl was following behind her father watching the trail of needles from the tree. She clutched the bread tightly in her mittened hands. She noticed that there was string hanging from her father’s coat pocket. To her surprise, he didn’t carry the tree to the trash heap. He stuck it upright in a snow bank. Taking the string from his pocket, he showed her how to tie the string to bits of bread and hang the bread all over the tree. When they were out of bread they went back into the house.

While they drank the cocoa the little girl’s mother made for them, they sat by the window and watched the tree. A chickadee landed on a branch to peck at the bread. After a taste or two he began calling and was joined by more chickadees. Soon nuthatches, blue jays, cardinals, and a woodpecker came to feast on the bread. The little girl’s eyes shown as she watched from the window. The father said to her “See, your tree is all decorated once again!”

After a time the needles were almost all on the snow bank; more bread and the many birds could not make the tree lovely. The father told the little girl he was going to take the tree to the mill. He told her to dress warm, be ready for a walk and to get her sled. The poor tree was tied to the sled and they set off together. The little girl thought the tree might be turned into lumber but even she could see the trunk wasn’t very straight. Instead, they walked past the lumber mill to the paper mill. There her father talked with the manager who untied the tree and stood it inside the wide doors of the mill. He asked them to follow him.

The manager showed the father and his child how the trees were run through machines that stripped the bark and unusable limbs. Then the trees went to a grinder and the resulting saw dust was added to chemicals and stirred. A thick slop called pulp was spread thin and rolled to squeeze out the moisture. Then it was dried and rolled some more until it was paper. The little girl knew she liked to have lots of paper for drawing and writing and folding and, and, so much more. Then the manager said the tour was over but the little girl should look for something special from her tree in the morning.

The next morning the little girl chattered at her father all through breakfast. She wanted him to show her what her tree was doing now. He asked her to help mother clear up after breakfast and then come join him in the living room. She did as she was told but she could hardly wait to see her tree. She ran to her father and jumped into his lap. Then he pulled out from behind him the Sunday Comics! “This is what was printed on the paper from your tree,” her father said. Then he read the comics to her once, twice and three times.

At this point, Dad told me to go ask Mom for some bread, he would get the string and we would bundle up and take the tree out to a snow bank. I bet I broke a world’s record getting the bread from Mom who had been listening and already tied strings to all the chunks of bread. Dad and I made the bird tree and then he took one of his long solitary walks that lasted for hours, and I came in. Several weeks later, the tree disappeared. I imagine Dad either put it on a neighbor’s trash heap or cut it up and burned it when I wasn’t around to watch. One Sunday morning, Dad suggested we sit down and read the comics together. I, of course, was sure they came from my tree.

When Helen was small, her Jack-O-Lanterns always had to leave a note that they were going back to the pumpkin patch to visit family and would be back next year. Marc was not ever so much attached to a particular holiday as he was to life keeping a rut (like his mom, he is). We have pictures of him in the front yard, looking very Grinch like, sucking his thumb, and firmly entrenched in Dave’s old recliner. The chair was broken, the new one was purchased and expected that day, but Marc refused to let us throw the old one away. I had to be quick on my toes to come up with a story that would make him satisfied that the old chair would be re-used, loved, and the new chair would be better for Dad’s back.

When putting our kids to bed, they were each allowed a story. Books were sorted and chosen and we would settle in to cuddle and read. Often, though, the request would be for a story “out of my mouth”. Usually the stories were about them and their pets having rich adventures, but always winding up safe and sound at home. No Grimm or Anderson Fairy Tales for our kids! We would laugh at the antics of our pets in the stories and maybe that was not a good way to settle children for sleep, but we enjoyed it. When Marc was blogging about his experiences training for 100 mile bike rides or triathlon to fight cancer, he showed his ability to bring someone else into his experiences by telling a story. Helen is studying to write for children. She has one that her instructor says is nearly ready for submission for publication.

Grandchildren at their very mature ages of pre-teen still once in awhile ask for a story. It’s a little trickier to pull teens along in a story because they interrupt or fall asleep! Imagine! I told our little ones about the time we visited my cousin’s farm. I told them my Cousin Aleen cornered their daddy and auntie to shell peas she had picked that morning. She told Helen and Marc they could only help if they ate some while they were shelling. The three of them had enormous fun! While shelling peas and getting to know Aleen, they felt comfortable telling her they only like raw peas never cooked ones. She agreed raw was best but she had a special pea casserole she insisted they taste at dinner. Reluctantly they gave their word. At the table, Aleen brought in a bowl of creamed peas and pearl onions (which I knew in my heart would bring rude gags and coughing from my two), and a covered dish she said was the one they had to try. Grace was said, food was passed, and Aleen reached for the covered dish to serve our two who were looking less than enthused. She whipped off the cover and there was a whole bowl of raw, shelled peas she had set aside for them. What a hero she was.

One afternoon Bett and Belle and I were playing outside in the snow and in their window was a pretty little wreath that looked homemade. I asked Bett if Mommy made the wreath. Bett smiled a little far-a-way smile and said, No. A dear woman who lives up the street made that wreath for us. She called one day and said she had something very special and Mommy and Belle and I should come up to see. We put on our coats and walked to her house and she said she had made us a gift. She presented the wreath and then asked us to stay for a treat. Belle and I didn’t know what she would serve; we don’t like to eat when we are not sure about the cooking. She brought in a bowl and set it down and it was raw peas! There was more to the story, but I missed some of it. I realized she was making it up as she went along and she had caught me at my own game!

Later, as I related what happened to Dave, he asked me if I knew what a legacy I had given. I shook my head; what legacy? He said, “Do you know what a gift it is to tell a story and then have others learn to tell them?” I didn’t see it that way. Everybody tells stories to their kids! Dave assured me that was not so. I still very much took it for granted for a long time after that. I continued just being a Grammy who loved to entertain her granddaughters.

Dave also can tell stories. He used to hold our little Miniature Schnauzer, Liebchen, on his lap and tell him “Bavarian Hunter Dog Stories”. Of course what Dave was doing was relaying to the kids what Liebchen used to do as a Barbarian Hunter Dog. He saved lives, found treasure, and buried things he never could find again. The kids would laugh. He would pooh-pooh this as real story telling, but he charmed the kids and made them ask for more! I should also relate that he has another talent. He used to read stories to the kids with a Swedish accent. One time just after Marc was born, Helen asked Dave to read “like Ole Olson”. He agreed. Our then four-year-old cherub brought him the King James Bible and settled herself comfortably in his lap. I’ll never forget the look on his face nor the fact he opened the Bible and worked diligently to get all the “these, thous, and thines” in the proper accent. What a Dad!

When Bett had reached the very mature age of a Third Grader, she was finding spelling difficult. I took a copy of her spelling words and created a story using that week’s entire spelling list. I printed the story leaving blanks where the words fit and she had to complete the story by filling in the correct spelling word. She showed it to her teacher who called and asked permission to print it for the class. That started a series of stories, written each week using the current spelling list. At the end of the year, we had a complete set. The teacher asked if she could use the stories following years as Belle was coming along soon and would like to have Grammy’s stories too. I agreed. In two years Belle had grown and was entering the Third Grade. I received a call from the teacher just prior to school starting. The district had decided to change curriculum and the old stories no longer matched the spelling lists. Hmmmmm. I wrote a whole new series. I later learned that both girls disliked the stories as they really had to work to fill in the words. I still have them and will present each of them with their year of stories on their wedding days.

While Dave considers storytelling an art and a legacy, I am here to tell you it can also get you into trouble. For a time when I was little, and the same could be said of our kids and grandkids, there proved to be a fine line between story-telling and lying. I was very good at telling convincing stories to my teachers so I could escape their elementary school classrooms and run down the hall to Pat’s room or better yet all the way home! I also found that boring days were made much more exciting by encouraging the neighbor boy, Tommy, to go along with the story that the fractious neighbor no one trusted had been shooting at us with a gun. Everyone knew he had guns, was a recluse, refused to get along with others, and disliked children. I’m sure the latter became truer after the two sets of parents called the police and he was thoroughly questioned.

When our children were small, I developed a phrase to let them know I was running out of ideas for a story after having told three or four stories in a row. I would say, “They don’t just pop up like tissues, you know!” This has carried over to our grandchildren. Some days, the supply seems inexhaustible like a roll of bath tissue. Other days, the tissue box is empty and searching mental fingers will not pull up a story no matter how earnest the effort.

Everyone has had teachers they loved and teachers they disliked but learned from and teachers who should not carry the title. I had several, but one that comes to mind would not let me write stories or pretend to be using cursive because “you have not yet been taught to do that”. Another that comes to mind is the one who informed Helen’s Seventh Grade class that A Tale of Two Cities was to be presented on TV and while they wouldn’t understand it they should try watching it. He called me that afternoon to inform me Helen had raised her hand and said, “Mr. Teacher, you are doing Dickens and Shakespeare an injustice. Neither is difficult to understand and you are scaring kids away from really good stories when you say they are difficult.” He was surprised and pleased she had done it. Marc had a similar brush with an English Literature Teacher, which I will tell in another blog. Bett also was caught writing a story the teacher interpreted as “not fit for school”. She took Bett’s story away from her, made her feel embarrassed, and called her parents. The story was not being written at a time in school when Bett should have been doing something else. She wrote about a kiss. Perhaps this should have been addressed, but immediately and without the censure creating shame and embarrassment. The little spiral notebook was not returned for weeks and Bett stopped writing - anything. This to a child who before she could truly write many words at all put her hands over her heart and exclaimed, “The dear man! He knows how I like to journal!” when Dave gave her a tiny little notebook. It was a long time before we could convince her to keep journaling, learn to be attentive to her readership, when she was creating, and to not be devastated by a teacher without sensitivity.

Thankfully there have been good teachers in all of our lives as well. My Ninth Grade teacher said she read one of my poems and cried. “So like Byron” she told me. Helen and Marc had their share of teachers who did more than present curriculum; they put their whole person into reaching out to their classes. Bett and Belle are not yet finished with their educations, but they have had some truly wonderful teachers whether they appreciated them or not.

Now, think about this just a bit. Helen could stand up for Dickens and Shakespeare because when she and Marc were infants, I would read to them almost every afternoon or evening. If I was going to read something for a long time, I wanted to enjoy it as well. You guessed it! A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carole, Great Expectations, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, MacBeth, were all standard fare. There was also Winnie the Pooh, Wind in the Willows, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. There were times when reading was a trial; the trial was not mine but our children’s. I am an emotional reader! If the book was funny, Winnie the Pooh meeting the Heffalump, I laughed so hard I couldn’t continue and they would have to wait for me to settle down in order to finish the story. When we reached the end of Willie Wonka, I sobbed. It has a happy ending you say. Yes, but I was so touched by it. Marc in high dudgeon and great disdain, took the book from my hands, walked over to Dave and said, “Dad, could you please finish the last chapter? Mom is crying so hard we can’t understand her!”

It was many years before I learned to read the “truth” of history from several viewpoints. The Civil War of the United States had two sides. Family members north and south of the Mason Dixon Line could not agree. Brothers and Fathers crossed that line to fight each other over what they believed to be right or true. How then can anyone read only one viewpoint of the war and know what people were doing and saying and thinking. Lincoln was often criticized for being able to empathize with the South even though he believed the country should remain a single country of separate and self-governing states no matter the cost for both North and South. He was a man who never lost sight of the fact that there is more than one opinion and truth lies in the mosaic of all.

The Bible is God’s story. He gave the first five books to Moses. Much of it was given to others in oral tradition. Paper and books and scribes later faithfully set down the oral information. As manuscripts have been found in the original, it proves to be a library very little changed in spite of all these centuries, all the people who have attempted to make it clearer, all the many languages into to which it has been translated. Dialects and paraphrasing don’t alter the meaning. Our grandgirls like the music from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat but when we watch the DVD, we refer back to the Bible story to complete the picture and correct the poetic license. Hollywood has produced a number of Bible stories for viewing – not to be sneered at, but to be checked against the original manuscript! Some of those stories would never have been given a second glance if God hadn’t permitted a Sunday School Teacher or a grandparent or parent, or Hollywood to make them come alive. Never read from one perspective. Learned men, scholars of the Bible, have written tomes on single verses but they do not all agree. Each person must prayerfully ask the Holy Spirit of God to help the find the personal meaning. Don’t sell God short; He is still the best teacher the world has ever had.

Winter on Polk Street Hill

Winter was a time of intense innovation, fun, peace, and good sleep. We played hard, ate well, and slept the sleep of innocence. Christmas vacation from school kicked off approximately three months of great play (three months of winter not three months of vacation). We were oblivious to whether our folks were struggling to meet the fuel bills, food was always available from the garden produce in rainbow array on basement shelves, and warmth was available in a cup of cocoa in front of the furnace grate.

Fights happened less often in winter. This was probably because, like hockey players, the amount of clothing we were bundled in prevented much free movement and winning damage. The variety of sweaters, socks (sometimes even used for mittens), leggings, snow pants and coats, scarves, caps, and belts to keep the snow out of the snow pants mothers could pull together and cram onto one kid was amazing. They said it was to make sure we stayed warm and didn’t catch cold. The truth was they wanted us to stay out of doors for as long as possible and out from under foot. May Heaven and all its angels help the child who was nearly dressed and had to go to the bathroom. Those of us who were already dressed hated waiting for the ones who were not yet dressed. Their moms always invited us in where we got sweaty, started to itch every place too padded to scratch, and nearly passed out from the heat. Most of us were smart enough to say “No, thank you,” and wait outside.

Behind the house where Tommy and Chucky lived was a two or three lot, houseless, hill. This was good sledding if you didn’t mind the occasional large rock or stump on the way down. We would pull our sleds (not the plastic saucers and skids of today) to the top of the hill. The first couple trips down were not worth the effort as it took some time for sled runners to pack the snow and give some speed and distance to the slide. Once we had hitched our way down several times, the sleds started to glide smoothly down.

Of course, not all of us had sleds so we had to share or be creative in providing passage for all the group assembled. Chucky, Danny and Russ being very young usually went on my sled. I would sit up with my feet on the steering with one or two between my knees and down we would go. I was good at steering with my feet (hmmmmm, wonder if I could improve my driving). Anyway, the one who took a passenger could make the passenger pull the sled to the top of the hill for another run. There was also the option of yelling “Magpie” and the sled owner would flop on the sled belly down; as many as could catch the sled before it actually headed downward piled on top. Four was chancy and five in a pile meant disaster somewhere in the middle of the hill. Why we didn’t have more concussions than a football team without helmets is beyond me. There would always be a lot of laughing, yelling, and correcting each other’s prowess as a sledder. For the most part we missed the rocks and stumps but someone else’s sled was as if we were drawn to each other by magnets. Surprisingly, while there were accidents and pain there were very few tears.

If the hill was snowy, and the skies were dropping big flakes of new snow, we would make our last slide to the bottom where we would lie in the snow piled up at the bottom and watch the flakes falling on us. We would excitedly point out big ones. Legs aching because of the many trips up the hill would rest and relax. If it was snowing hard, we would lie there waiting for the snow to cover us. If it was close to sundown, we watched the light in the sky change and felt twilight steal over us. There was little light on the hill because street lights weren’t put in where there were no houses. Sooner or later, a mother’s voice would be heard calling a name or two and kids would rise, shake the snow off themselves, take their sled rope and head for supper (oh, the days, of breakfast, dinner, and supper!). Mom’s would call in succession. The last child would usually go with those just called so they wouldn’t have to make the trip home alone. If I was last, I would say my goodbyes and then when I got to my yard I would see that the yard light was on and I would lie down again and watch the flakes sifting down through the light.

Once inside, it took almost as long to peel out of all the wraps as it had to get into them. At our house, heated by kerosene, the stove that stood in the middle of the house would receive the wet clothing. The aroma of dinner cooking, coffee perking, and wet wool on the kerosene stove should have been bottled. I get sleepy just closing my eyes to remember. I knew it was a good night when dinner was one of my favorites: boiled macaroni and warm milk with butter, salt and pepper, or “grave-yard stew” which was milk toast. If Mom made a pancake cake, a tower of pancakes, with butter and a sprinkling of sugar or cinnamon and sugar between each cake I was in seventh heaven!

Tommy’s and Chucky’s parents also made a skating rink on their extra lot. We did a lot of skating by moonlight because school kept us from being out there before it got dark. We would hold hands and sing the Skater’s Waltz at the top of our lungs and laugh whenever any of us fell. I was a lousy skater. It took too much coordination. I never really learned to stop. I stopped by falling in a snow bank at the edge of the rink or making a half turn so I was facing the opposite direction. Still I gave it my all. Since it was close to the ballet I so loved, I imagined I was graceful and adept. My friends were kind and didn’t blow my image too often.

We didn’t slide down Polk Street Hill because there were just enough cars to make it not safe. In the summer the wagon rides and roller skate trips were on the sidewalk. Sidewalks were cleared for walking in the winter which meant nothing slid. Well, nothing that is except my sister Dot and occasionally me. If you made a misstep anywhere from our sidewalk to the corner of 39^th Avenue, you were lost. One morning, Dot went out to put salt on the sidewalks because we had sleet during the night. In those days we didn’t have chemical salt, we used table salt. There was Dot, salt shaker in hand, sprinkling salt ahead of her own steps and walking carefully. I watched from the door as she made it down our walk to the city walk. We had two steps down to the city sidewalk. That’s where things started moving too fast to take it all in.

Dot tripped, slipped, stumbled, who knows what off our two steps. She landed on her back with her hands, feet, and babushka swathed head in the air. Skirts whirling around her, she spun in a counter clockwise rotation which seemed to be picking up speed as I watched. Ev raced out the door to help her, but by the time he reached where she fell, she was three houses down Polk Street hill. She was still rotating, screaming at the top of her lungs, and flinging salt with every rotation. She never dropped the salt shaker. Ev didn’t try to follow her down the hill, he was laughing too hard to move. I was terrified for her but I was laughing too. She didn’t get hurt (except for pride) but she was the most entertainment the neighborhood had observed in many months. When Dot slowly made her way up the hill, she saw Ev and started to laugh with him. Mom cooed and clucked over her appropriately. About an hour later, I found Mom in the back yard by the brick fireplace Dad burned garbage at every night. She was shaking and making funny noises. I approached her wondering what was wrong. She was laughing. She had her apron stuffed into her mouth and was laughing!

I can remember many an icy fall down Polk Street hill. If you lost your balance at the top, you had to go all the way down; there was no grace between points. Once in awhile with arms windmilling and feet dancing as fast as they could go, I was able to come up against a boulevard tree or catch the edge of a stone retaining wall or mail box. Most times, I resigned myself to going all the way down. I don’t remember ever getting hurt but I was terrified until level ground brought me to a stop.

I attended Silver Lake Elementary which was at 41^st and Tyler. During spring and fall, I walked Polk Street hill to 39^th Avenue which I crossed. Then I walked to either the alley between Polk and Tyler Streets or to Tyler. I mostly preferred Tyler because the sidewalk was high above the swamp where Polk Street dead ended. I preferred that because in spring and fall, the reptiles that were headed toward the swamp and winter hibernation or away from the swamp were more than I could bear. The grasshoppers that flew and landed and bit were bad enough but the reptiles were more of a test to my courage than I could prove. But when winter came, oh my, the walk to and from school had added adventure.

We would walk Polk Street because it was lower than Tyler and thus out of the wind. When we got to the swamp, we tested the wind. Then against all advice of our mothers, we stepped out onto the swamp, opened our jackets and held them wide open. The wind at our backs would blow us across the swamp! The occasional reed or raised trash that wasn’t covered by ice might trip us up, but the joy of bracing your feet and being pushed across the ice was the best of treats. We always hoped the wind had switched for the homeward trip. In truth winter winds more commonly out of the North were for a homeward glide across the swamp more often than toward school. Who wants to speed to school, anyway?

Most often on the walk home, I walked alone. The boys didn’t want to be seen walking with a girl even though we played together all the time. Tommy and Chucky attended the Parochial school, Terry and Normie were sent to a private school, and that left the tougher Dickie and Gary and Dickie was often sick too often to attend school. One particular day, Ellis was headed the same direction I was going. He didn’t live on Polk Street hill so he must have been going to play with someone after school. He started picking on me. I tried ignoring him but that wasn’t working very well. He threw a snowball at me and I pelted him back. Then he started trying to wash my face in the snow. I had enough and was loaded for bear! I rushed him but I slipped and got a few good punches in before I lost footing completely and fell. I bumped my head hard enough to see stars and Ellis took advantage. He jumped on top of me and started trying to wash my face with snow even though I still hadn’t quite caught my breath from falling. Suddenly he was gone! I cleared the cobwebs out of my brain and looked up to see Gary pounding Ellis while he was on his back in the snow. To say I was shocked puts it mildly. I watched and it seemed to go on forever. I got to my feet and walked over and stopped Gary. Ellis had a bloody nose and was crying. I asked Gary what he thought he was doing. He didn’t answer me but talked to Ellis. “You took advantage – bad enough with a guy but you did it to girl!” he hissed. I blinked. I didn’t need championing but I was on the receiving end of it. I tried to move Gary away and toward home but he wasn’t budging. “You little coward! If she hadn’t slipped on the ice you’d look worse than you do now! Don’t you let me catch you on our street again!” Whoa, Bubba! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. That was some left-handed compliment. I finally got Gary moving toward home. I learned later from Dickie that Gary went back after he walked me all the way home and made sure Ellis was OK. Dickie told me Gary followed Ellis all the way to his own house. To this day I wonder if Ellis was glad Gary came back or if he would have rather stayed in the snow bank.

Some years, the swamp had a warming house and attendant so the swamp could be a skating rink. It was bigger than the extra lot Tommy and Chucky had and kids from the attendance area of Silver Lake Elementary came to skate there. There were also street lights near by so it seemed lighted. It was great to skate and then go into the wooden warming house, hear the skates clomping on the wood floor boards, and get your mittens warm if not dry. Again, we opened jackets and the wind ride was even faster on skates. We would put our boots on in the warming house and tingling toes were only surpassed by the cramped calves from skating too long. Eddie and I were having so much fun skating one late afternoon, he froze his ears. He didn’t want to quit and he didn’t have a cap. Several times I tried to talk him into stopping but we were enjoying each other and stopping meant he would go to his house and I would go to mine at opposite ends of the attendance area. We would make short stops in the warming house and then back out. The next Monday at school, Eddie was there, but his ears had huge white bandages on them and I imagine they were a life-long source of pain to him from then on. We had never been playmates nor friends prior to that day nor after it. We just didn’t live close enough to spend much time together.

There was a particular site of pleasure for me. On Polk Street, between the swamp and 39^th Avenue was a house that had several large pine trees, Spruce, in a corner of the yard. Once the early frosts of autumn started I would stop by the pines. I would hold my breath and listen to wind whisper in the pines and smell the pitch. On a walk home after school, with the North Wind blowing at my back, the stop at the pines was even better. I would push my way into the center of the closely planted pines. Silence! Soft pine needles underfoot, pine fragrance all around me, no wind except that whispering in the tops of the trees, and pine cones to play with gave me a chance to warm a bit and then head home. I loved those pines! When thick slushy snow fell, the center of the copse was dry and warm. When the big lacy flakes fell the wonderful warmth and dryness of that little haven was bliss. I would often go in there, sit down and watch the snow fall and listen to the wind soughing. By this time, maybe fourth or fifth grade, there were rumors of Russia becoming an adversary (we had regular drills for atomic attack at school and evacuation maps adorned the walls of every kitchen); and the world was becoming smaller and more frightening. These pines were my Sanctuary away from the things that frightened me. Everett was moving to Detroit MI, Dot had married Will and Rob was my 1950 Christmas present that was both a joy and a nuisance; he stole my status as “youngest”. There was talk Normie’s family might move away. Life was changing. I DO NOT LIKE CHANGE! Inside the pines I could make the world go away.

One day had been particularly trying at school. I was a fair student and accepted the grades I could obtain easily and didn’t bother to reach for A’s. The blizzard started three hours before school was to let out and I could not be out in it playing! The class bully had once again had to be put in his place for picking on a smaller kid; and I got scolded for beating up on him. The cheek of some principals! I was walking home alone and the pines were waiting. They were already looking like a Christmas card with branches heavily coated in high mounds of snow. I crawled in so I wouldn’t dislodge the snow on the branches thereby spoiling the beauty. Once inside there was no blizzard, no angry principal, no class bully, and all was quiet. I remember singing Silent Night and O, Little Town of Bethlehem. Then I talked to myself (a regular practice that included debates and stories). It was becoming twilight when I woke. Considering twilight comes early in the winter and this was a dark sky throwing down one of its best blizzards, it was probably 4:30 PM. I crawled out and discovered the rest of my one and one half blocks was going to be in knee deep snow and in some places almost hip deep where it had drifted.

I don’t think I fully realized how narrow my escape until many years later as an adult. I remember the look on Mom’s face when I told her I fell asleep. She didn’t scold. She asked if I felt better. I think she realized that I have that same solitary streak my dad had and that it would do no good to tell me not to do it again. She knew I was aware it wasn’t good to go to sleep outside in a blizzard and that I would be more careful. I still like to sleep outside. I was 55 years of age before I got to sleep in a tent the first time. The very next spring, Dave bought me one so I could camp out in the backyard with our granddaughters! I would love to go winter camping, but I know I don’t have the stamina to hike into a snow-bound camp area. My heart knows I would love to dig in and sleep under a winter sky. Sometime I’ll tell you about falling asleep on a rock near Ely, Minnesota.

There were snowball fights galore, we built snowmen and women (does it surprise you they were real to me?). The Judy Garland movie from which the song Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas came from has a scene where the little sister, Margaret O’Brien, is upset at having to move. She runs into the yard and destroys the snowmen she built earlier in the day. The scene made me sob out loud at the Columbia Heights theatre and still brings tears when I watch today.

Chucky agreed to be a model for a snow sculpture. You would think a kid sent down a hill in a truck tire would have figured out he would be the sculpture! We started piling snow around him. We used shovels and packed each layer of the heavy wet snow with our hands. He started yelling when he could no longer move his arms and we didn’t appear to be stopping. His mom happened to look out her door the same time my mom came flying out of ours. They clawed Chucky loose and promised him he didn’t ever have to be a sculpture. Tommy and I were threatened with dire consequences if we ever tried something like that again. Later, after having to shovel a path to the clotheslines and clear under the clotheslines as punishment, I heard Mom telling Dad what we had done. Dad in his very quiet voice said, “Good you made them promise not to do it again, that would be boring! I like it better when they think up something new!” Mom was pretty upset with him for thinking it was funny.

A yearly thrill I had was not out on Polk Street hill but in our house. Since I now knew there was no Santa, Mom allowed me to unpack the Christmas ornaments and dust each one. Our tree was a hodge-podge of ornaments collected over the years. There were special ornaments for each child born. Dot and Ev had German birds with wire legs ending in clips that fastened them to the tree branch. Theirs were red. I think Betty and Pat also had birds that were more “real” in appearance. I had a pink sort of tear drop ornament with spirals of sugar glaze. Each year a new ornament was purchased for the tree. I stood by Dad’s and Mom’s bed which was covered in newspapers and carefully dusted each ornament with a soft cloth then placed it on the bed to await trimming the tree. When they were all lined up I would gaze at hundreds (well maybe not that many) reflections of me. Irresistible! I would burst into carols. There I was a one-person choir. I would direct and each globe would direct back! I was out of the way, having fun, and being useful all at once.

The trees of my life have come and gone but each has been “the best ever”. Each Christmas I sigh at the work of putting up the tree, but I always see it through. I still like the odd reflection thrown back from the round globes of glass but I don’t direct any more. I see the comparison of us reflecting God’s likeness to others. He takes us out of the sinful life we were wallowing through, dusts us carefully, and sets us out in the world to reflect Him. He doesn’t do this only at Christmas, but all year long. We are to represent Him in our every-day business, actions, and interactions. We are to do this with family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. Sometimes we fail miserably and our reflection needs a little more dusting. Sometimes we glitter brightly like the ornaments with sun twinkling on them. Our brightest is when we quit trying so hard to be perfect and let God shine through from the inside. Take some time to find the child you put away when you became mature and adult. While you are doing that, I have to go stand by the tree. I have a choir to direct!

Isn't She Cute?

I heard the title question quite a lot as a little girl. I was cute! Big hazel eyes in a small pixie face, sort of golden-brown hair that was curly or wavy depending on the weather and an adult way of talking and thinking because of being the youngest. Shy (until I got to know you, that is). Once I decided you were among my favorites, it was “Katie Bar the Door” forever after.

The friends of Dot and Ev were prime targets as they were all reaching child-bearing ages and loved to gush over little ones. I was there waiting and ready to be gushed over! Dot’s friend Althea agreed to go for a wagon ride with me. She should have known better. Polk Street hill in Columbia Heights between 39^th and 37^th Avenues was a long, steep hill. It was made for wagon rides, sledding, and roller skates! Once in the wagon and dependent upon a six-year old me to steer, Althea learned I didn’t know how to steer, nor brake, nor stop the wagon until we were at the bottom. She was a trim lady with long legs which were on the tree-side of our break-neck speeding Red Flyer! I can still hear her screams today. Ev’s friend Buckles was also taken for a ride. He thought himself quite cosmopolitan, was studying to become a doctor, had recently married and screamed like a girl all the way down the hill.

Polk Street hill played a prominent part in most of my adventures. The largest number of us who played together lived near the top of the hill. There were the brothers across the street Tommy (my age) and Chucky (younger by two or three years). They also had a sister, Shirley, who was Pat’s age. Next door were the four boys in order from eldest to youngest: Terry, Normie (my age), Danny, and Russ. At the bottom of the hill were four brothers of whom I can only remember two: Dickie, and Gary (my age). There were two adopted boys across the street from them who weren’t allowed to play with us much: Steven and David (my age). Later a second David moved into the neighborhood (a year younger than me). There were three girls in the middle of the hill not related to one another: Louise, Mary, and Sherry. The girls were all three to four years younger than me and weren’t allowed to play with me very often (and there may have been good reason).

A girl amongst all those boys has to learn to hold her own or play alone. While I didn’t mind playing alone if I wanted to, joining in was more fun. Some girls would have learned to rule with a velvet glove cajoling, teasing, or winning her way into the games. I found boxing was more expedient. I learned to expect to be treated like one of the guys and I gave as good as I got. Dot and Betty were prissy and while I never heard Betty called “princess” she definitely could play the role. Pat was a tomboy and loved to play football and be outside; mud was not offensive to her – but her favorite pass time was reading. I loved being dressed up, playing dolls, and having tea parties, but I knew those things were reserved for those days I must play alone. I remember one afternoon while Mom was busy baking my birthday cake, Dot kept me occupied by making a crepe paper dress for me and an aluminum foil crown. Once in my royal garments, Dot placed me in Dad’s arm chair and left the room content she had set me with a game to keep me busy. She was right. The Queen’s problem was that her throne was not big enough nor high enough to impress. I put the matching footstool on the chair, added a box and two pillows and put my little metal rocking chair on top of all. Mom came from the kitchen to find me commanding an imaginary audience of peons while teetering precariously nearly five feet off the ground. I still smile when I realize it wasn’t me who got yelled at. After all, Dot was supposed to have been watching me!

I played alone whenever the boys were grounded because of mass mischief (which was usually instigated by me and orchestrated by them). The week they were all kept inside for smoking, I was the one who brought the cigarettes and matches and lit them for the boys to puff on. I was never discovered hence never grounded. When Tommy was grounded for fighting with a girl, it was after he tried to pistol whip me with a toy gun. I punched him in the stomach and when he fell to his knees gasping for air, I grabbed his hair and started vigorously shaking him. I shook that handful of hair attached to his head until he had crawled out of the yard. Kangaroo Court Justice is the title for that. Adding insult to injury was his enforced stay at home. Who knows? His mother may have been trying to protect him from me.

Normie was the one I gave the black eye to. We were arguing over who would wear the roller skates first. Boys wrestle and tussle and roll in the dirt to settle an argument. I watched boxing with my dad and practiced what I saw. As Normie rushed in to put a bear hug on me, I timed my punch so that his momentum, and my know-how landed my fist squarely on the point of his nose. The nose didn’t break, but he had a black eye for a week. I used the roller skates while he was inside being comforted by his mother. Normie’s older brother, Terry didn’t pick on Normie if I was around because even though he was two or three years older, I would tear into him like a terrier after a mastiff for picking on my friend. I guess the right to maim Normie was mine alone!

In spite of the fights, we three, Normie, Tommy, and I, were inseparable friends. We played together almost every day they were not grounded. I married each of them so I would not show any favorites. I believe we were all five at the time. We were invincible, clever, and nearly fearless as a team. We invented the first skate boards but will never have any credit for it. Tired of the routine wagons and skating and hopscotch and jumping rope, we looked for a way to spice up an afternoon. We started going down Polk Street hill sitting on a single skate. These were the skates with metal wheels, ball bearings needing oil now and then, clamps for your shoe toes, and a strap around the ankle. They were not a comfortable ride; every sidewalk crack could be felt from the tailbone to the neck bone! We rounded up pieces of cardboard and put those on top of the skate which cushioned the behind and allowed us to sit, hold hands and feet high in the air and sail down the hill all day long. Yes, sometimes the skate, cardboard, and rider went in three distinctly different directions; yes, there were contusions and abrasions as battle scars. That game stayed popular for several years until we all became too tall to make it work. I think it was a game that caused the kids from the bottom of the hill to join in and get along with the kids from the top of the hill.

Chucky didn’t mean to be but he was a pain in the derrière! He was enough younger to not know how to play without having his feelings hurt. Since he was tiresome, we devised ways to get rid of him; some of those ways could have been permanent but for the protection of a Merciful God. We used the neighbor’s lumber pile to support large cardboard boxes and created a two-story cardboard house. We pulled lumber out part way to hold the boxes and cut trap doors and windows and were beginning to decorate with colors on the inside. It was Chucky we sent to the top story. Suddenly there was an ominous shaking. We departed the structure but left Chucky inside. We stared as the walls bulged here and there, little mewing noises were coming from the frightened boy, and the entire building project crashed to the ground. Somehow (remember that merciful God) Chucky wound up on top of the collapsed mess. He wasn’t hurt, just frightened out of his mind!

When we played cowboys and Indians, we could spread out over several yards and have a never-ending pioneer territory to settle. Sometimes I was Dale Evans but usually I was just another one of the hired ranch hands. I often was an Indian and that was my favorite. When asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would often tell people “an Indian”. I just didn’t understand you couldn’t grow into what you admired. We would have our wars, yelling and hooting and shooting. The guns had “caps” sold around the 4^th of July. When the caps were gone, we had to make our own shooting noises. Mom stopped me from chasing Terry out of the yard with my bow and arrow before I could let fly my arrow. We all died appropriately falling to the ground in the best of groaning agony. We fell out of trees, off imaginary horses, and out of wagons. Well, that is we did all that if the mortal shot was not fired by Chucky! If he shot we all kept going. After Chucky’s third or fourth trip home to tattle, their mom would open the front door to scold us for not playing nicely. One day she caused the entire top of the hill neighborhood to laugh when the front door opened. She stuck her head out and yelled, “Tommy! Drop dead once in a while for your brother!”

I was thoroughly fed up with young Chuck one day and sat staring at an old truck tire we had been using as a prop for various games. I conferred with Tommy and Normie. We were in agreement! We forced the edges of the tire open and convinced Chucky he could sit in there. He could. When we let the rims go, he was held fast. I really have to say I don’t know how one thing led to another, but I can bet it was my clever little mind and willing followers that developed the unfolding events. With Chucky’s protests nearly inaudible from inside the tire, we stood the tire on end and let it go down Polk Street hill. The tire wobbled a little, picked up speed, and rolled rapidly toward the bottom of the hill. Chucky’s little arms were flapping out the side and we could hear his screams with every rotation of the tire. The screams were small when he was facing away, but at the bottom of a rotation, he would be facing us and the screams were louder. The tire tipped over before it came to the busy 37^th Avenue at the bottom of the hill. No one was grounded because we were all too frightened to tell, especially Chucky!  The little pest lost enthusiasm for playing with the big kids for about two weeks.

Over a period of several years, I caused Tommy major dental work. They wouldn’t let me play baseball with them because I might throw like a girl. I picked up the hard ball and asked Tommy where he would like it. “Right here!” came the prompt answer as he held the catcher’s mitt in front of his face. I pitched. The unbelieving Tommy moved the glove, and for two years he didn’t eat apples or caramels or anything very hard while his two permanent front teeth reseated and strengthened themselves. He lost some baby teeth to me as well. The final molar came out the day we were in our early teens and he informed me I had to quit beating up on boys or I would never have a date. I swung straight from the shoulder and he spit out a tooth.

The second David that moved in when we were around ten years of age, was a tough little character built like a barn. He was a year younger than the rest of us, but he was my height or taller and outweighed me by a good fifteen pounds. He was broad of chest, quick and muscular. He terrorized the rest of the boys. One day he and I were the only ones out of doors. He started bragging about how tough he was. I said I wanted to show him something behind our huge lilac bush. I knocked the snot out of him, as the saying goes. He lay, crying and nursing a bloody nose. I sat down next to him and said, “I won’t tell anyone what happened if you start playing with all of us instead of picking on everybody!” I never told and he became a part of the group.

Dicky and Gary rarely played with the top of the hill kids. Dicky suffered polio when he was quite young. I think he was two years older than me. His family had problems that kept the neighbors at arm’s length but I don’t know what they were. Once he was on the mend with braces and crutches, he often came to spend time with my mom. He was somewhat neglected at home and couldn’t attend school yet. Mom would encourage him and help him. She also began teaching him some independence. She let him decide when he needed help and taught him to ask for it. He was sometimes belligerent and cantankerous so as a four-year-old bystander I wondered why they liked each other so much. One winter day as he was leaving, he fell. There he was on the path toward the end of our yard a tangle of braces and crutches and legs that wouldn’t work. Mom started out of the door and he barked at her he didn’t need help and not to come near him. She stopped. He ordered her to go in the house. She did. Just out of sight, she watched through the multi-paned glass of our front door as he struggled to get up. He tried and tried. The tears rolled down Mom’s cheeks and she didn’t even wipe them away. She hadn’t closed the door tightly as she wanted to be able to hear him. Soon, a thoroughly tired out, sweaty, youngster called out, “I know you’re there. I’m ready for help now. Please?” I think there was a love between the two of them that surpassed friendship. Mom opened the door, walked to him and pulled him to his feet. “Next time don’t be so stubborn!” she admonished.

When Dicky grew to early teens, he preferred to be called Dick, but I could still call him Dicky. My but he was turning out to be a handsome man. He wanted to re-learn to ride a bike. His back muscles had compensated somewhat for what his legs would not do and, while he still needed crutches, he could move about quite well for short periods of time without them. No one would let him try a bike. Those dark brown eyes, wavy dark brown hair, and killer smile were the catalyst for me to help him succeed. I let him use my dad’s bike. After several failed attempts, it was clear a grassy field, level ground, and me pushing were not what he needed to get a good start. He would not let me say it might not work. So! We went up our alley and around the corner grocer’s on 39^th Avenue, to the very top of Polk Street hill. No guts, no glory was our motto. He gave me his crutches and got on the bike, with the kickstand down for extra steadiness. I sat down and took out my shoe laces and tied his feet to the pedals. I hugged him and cried. Then I put up the kick stand and gave a mighty shove. He flew down the hill, careened around the corner onto 37^th Avenue, and was able to use the momentum to pedal up the alley where he could fall over and untie his feet. I met him in the alley so grateful to see him alive! A few more practice runs and he began to be able to pedal. He didn’t ride often nor far, but it gave him something he had longed to have.

Gary was in track and field. Remember this was in the late fifties and graduation for me was in 1960. Several of my friends and I were in the bleachers watching the track team practice hurdles. Gary was not having a good day and had several bad starts knocking hurdles over with each try. Of course, we girls were not being sympathetic. We were laughing. I became his target because he knew me and we fought more than we got along. “If you think you can do it better get down here and show me!” he yelled. I stood. I was wearing a blouse, full skirt with lots of crinolines, nylons and “shell” shoes. I came down the bleachers. You know, I don’t remember the coach saying anything to stop what happened next. He just stood there staring like all the others. Gary and I lined up. Hurdle for hurdle, we went over with me coming in just a step or two ahead of him at the end. Not a single hurdle was knocked over. I walked away without saying anything (more of a feat for me than running the hurdles). I am sure we were both surprised. We got along better after that. Funny.

They all remain in my memory just as they were. Boys: irresistible, funny, rambunctious, curious, enjoyable, and beyond understanding. We never stayed in touch after we grew up. I don’t know what they turned out like as husbands and fathers. They don’t know what I turned out to be as a wife, mother, grandmother. They were my playmates, my friends, and I liked them. There was always a spontaneity in our play I’ve lost in adulthood (well, somewhat). I think it was a time, an era, a group, a place, never to be repeated nor replaced.

God was merciful. We were a melting pot of Poles, Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Italians, middle class and poor, public and private school attenders, exemplifying what America was meant to be. We didn’t fight over things like skin shades, churches, or schools. Although, we did fight over whether a Christmas tree should have a star or angel at the top, whether spun glass angel hair was better than tinsel rain and tinsel garland, and whether or not there really was a Santa Clause. While we were growing up we waited for winter. Summer was fun and there was no school, but it was hot and there was work in the gardens and on the lawns. Winter meant a sense of security in that it seemed war couldn’t touch us because the world was silent and white. Little did we know that in Korea war was happening whatever the weather. We didn’t know yet about Viet Nam, nor presidents and senators being killed by their own countrymen, nor 11 September 2001. Kids today seem to know all those things and their life has a frightening side that is stronger and real rather than imaginary boogey men and monsters under the bed. We knew we would find safety in any of the adults between school and home if we needed them. Not so in this day and age.

We were together. We played together, fought together. We didn’t have to wait to get home to eat our treats from Halloween because no one would put in something that wasn’t home made, tasty, and safe to eat! We visited each others’ churches and synagogues. We exchanged Christmas presents we made and were polite about the way they looked. We sang carols together at Christmas – even the Jewish kids joined in. If I could wrap these memories in a colorful glass globe, I’d hang it on my Christmas tree. They are a part of the mix that makes me who I am today. It wasn’t that life wasn’t with hardship or grief. It was. But it was a slower time when news didn’t travel as fast or as far. We had time to be kids before we had to become adults.

This Christmas, along with spending time on reflection of what the Day stands for, take out a memory or two of when you knew life was good. Cherish it for a time and mentally put it on your Christmas tree. Thank God that you remember all the things He gave you and be grateful you lived without some of the things you might have had to face. Bless the fact you are who you are because of total life experiences. Ask God to let you walk into your future knowing that because He sent His Son at this time of year you will never walk without Him at your side. Thank Him that one day you will be a perfect reflection of Him because of the events He allows you to participate in on this earth. If you have not yet asked Christ to participate in your life, there’s no time like the present time to do so. He is The Gift that truly keeps on giving.

Pleased!

 ⁸Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8

Ponder the above. Thinking about God covers each of the suggestions and more. What pleases?

Mulling over what pleases may seem misleading as though anything that gives happiness is pleasing. Two instances with our granddaughters are stored in the treasures of memory along with those of times with our children and other family members

When I think of being pleased, I remember a photograph of our eldest granddaughter, Bett. She and Auntie were at the park near her home. She is between nine and eighteen months of age in the picture, wearing a T-shirt, bib overalls, socks (no shoes). Wisps of baby hair indicate there was a soft breeze from the lake. At the top of the little wooden climber she has the most elfin quality – not beautiful but enrapturing.

On Bett’s face is the most delightful expression. She is gazing somewhere far beyond this world into something only she sees and feels. To see her little face radiating such extreme pleasure, peace, contentment, excitement and wonder all at once makes the viewer feel good inside. We have all been to that place but have forgotten to go to refresh and relax. At the ripe old age of 13, Bett still remembers how to go there. That same expression can still be caught at certain times. The occurrences are fewer and farther between but they do occur. That Auntie captured her expression is as great a marvel as the expression itself. For one split second orchestration of eye, finger, shutter, and flash, all was captured for anyone who will look. In a breath, no more, Auntie snared that expression because she, too, was in tune with the discernment of a baby. There was an instant to commune with God; Bett and Auntie shared it.

The other moment was not caught on camera. Belle and I were sitting side by side. She never seems to soak up enough cuddling. Even at the very mature age of 11 she still comes for hugs and likes to sit close for periods of time. But the particular time I think of is when she was maybe four. Belle does not like to feel confined. There are times she remarks on hand and arm sensations that are not painful but uncomfortable (possibly the nerve endings reacting to mild claustrophobia?). She came to sit by me and I began to put my arm around her. I stopped. I looked at her little face and said, “You prefer holding the person you are cuddling instead of being held, right?” She smiled. I held my arm loosely away from by body and she wrapped her little arms around my upper arm and snuggled in. There was no broad smile, no noticeable muscle rearrangement to her face. Her eyes spoke volumes. There was pleasure you could touch. She was so pleased someone understood. By the Grace of God, I did and said the right thing.

At Bible study last night, we were asked to reflect on those moments when a time seemed like the perfect place to stay forever. The comparison was for the Transfiguration of Jesus on the Mount with Peter, James, and John as witnesses. Peter wanted to build tents for them all to stay: Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James and John. Jesus still had work on earth as did the three disciples. The mountain-top experience was to teach, grace, and gift the disciples for what was to come as well as for God to shower His Son Jesus with love.

I caught myself nodding as I thought about the good news Dave was not seriously damaged in a fall off our deck a couple years before; relief, love, tenderness and joy replaced the fear of a few minutes prior. I thought about holding babies, my own and others’. I thought of the way our grandchildren have slipped their hands in mine in complete trust. I thought of so many times when nature seemed too perfect to believe heaven could be better.

There have been times in my life when opportunities to be pleased were given, enjoyed or not, and gone as rapidly as they were given. Some were reveled in others came when busy, or sad, or angry, or hurting, or pleasure seeking; they may have been missed, never noticed.

After a summer storm which cleared the air of heat and stifling humidity, one 1950’s morning dawned with crisp cool air and lightness in the atmosphere I could taste. I woke to shift in bed and glance out my westward facing window. The world was molten gold. Everything, from our neighbor’s house and windows, to the garbage pit in our back yard was shimmering in gold. I lay there marveling. For the length of a heartbeat, everything was pure pleasure. It was not something I could seek out. It had been given to me. I remember it as clearly as if I am in the midst of it again. I’ve been given two other such mornings. As much in awe, I did not make time to savor it.

The second occurred when our son, Marc, was having knee surgery. I was driving southwest on I35W to meet Dave, our soon-to-be daughter-in-law, Jenny, and Marc at the hospital. Suddenly the world around me was molten gold. I knew Marc’s surgery would be successful and without complication. I had time to notice my own hands on the steering wheel of the car. They shimmered before my eyes! The moment was gone. While I didn’t give it the attention I should have, I do remember it vividly.

In an instant still thought of by me as “THE CLOUD!” I felt the end of this present time and was lost in fear rather than welcome. It was early evening in the summer. The sun was just nearing the horizon and there were clouds in the west. Helen and I were going somewhere, Dave was in the house, and Marc was with Jenny in Mounds View. As Helen and I stopped to check the sunset, a deep purple ribbon shot from a cloud, streamed across the blue sky of evening, racing straight into the east. We gasped! We called Dave to come see. As he reached the door, I heard both he and Helen breathe the word “cool”. Our phone rang. Dave answered and it was Marc who was on the back side of the clouds and had watched the phenomenon race toward us. He asked if we were all right and what we thought it was. He admitted it had frightened him.

Dave and Helen spoke of it later as being exciting and breathtaking. A friend of mine in Andover had also witnessed it. She is a lovely woman with an angelic soprano voice, and a communion with God only to be envied. I was startled to hear her say, “I saw it go and thought to myself, ‘even so, Lord Jesus, come!’.” As she related what she had thought, her face was softened with an ethereal quality. Pleasure! She was well pleased!

I was saddened that I could distinctly remember my own thought. “No, Lord, I’m not ready!” Not ready to see Him face to face? Not ready to leave unsaved loved ones behind? Not ready? What was I thinking? Slow to answer His call to salvation; am I to always be slow to answer His call? Though we have since determined the event was triggered by the sun sinking to a point where it caused the cloud to cast the shadow, my pleasure in it is tainted by the fear I felt and my unwelcoming attitude toward my Lord who will one day return and expect me to be ready. Lest you fear I labor under guilt, I won’t leave you there. I serve an understanding and forgiving God who let me see my weakness and is helping me to grow proper strength to one day meet Him in total readiness.

When Helen suffered ovarian cancer, our family discovered what it is to fear, trust, pull together, agonize, and get to work to survive. After a summer of hoping some of Helen’s health symptoms may have been an indication of pregnancy, we learned it was ovarian tumors. I don’t know why people need horror movies; life itself can feel like being caught in the wildest Stephen King horror. I’m not yet emotionally prepared to write about that entire time. Helen and I took turns using Caring Bridge to document the daily struggles and give health reports to caring friends and family. We are daily grateful for her good prognosis, her continuing gain in strength and health, and her good cancer numbers. I sat one day to go through my prayer journal. I regularly go back through prayers and see there are those to be noted as answered.

I realized I was beginning to read one of the first prayers I wrote during Helen’s diagnosis and surgery. I wanted to say, “I’m not ready yet, God”; but I remember “THE CLOUD!” so I begin to read. In the panicked scrawl of a mother praying for the life of her child the prayer came to life. I reached for a pen with different colored ink and began checking off the answers. I made margin notes and gave thanks. I continued through the prayers written for the circumstances of her healing from surgery, chemo infusions, and loss of dignity through the resultant physical attacks on body and mind and spirit. Each prayer had multiple answers. Sometimes I was amazed at the answer being beyond what I had asked in awe-inspiring ways. I finished with my gratitude and paper-clipped those pages together. The clipped pages became a closed book on a painful period of time. I was exhausted! What a wonderful walk with God. I was pleased! Do you know? I think God was pleased!

You may be wondering what caused this reflection in the midst of Christmas when the author is a self-proclaimed Christmas Looney! At Community Bible Study last night, a class made up of mentally (some physically as well) challenged youngsters shared their teaching on the meaning of the Christmas tree. The tree: representing, both the tree in the Garden that Adam and Eve tasted and the tree on which Christ died. The garland: representing an on-going, eternal, God and Christ’s love for us. The ornaments: representing all creation in the sun, moon, earth, planets and stars. The angel: representing the appearances of the Angel Gabriel to Mary and Joseph and the host of angels who greeted the shepherds. The star: representing the star that led the wise men to Jesus. The lights: representing Jesus as the Light of the World. It wasn’t the program itself that touched my heart, nor the music, nor the kids who did so well reading their parts in front of all of us.

What played across the strings of my heart was before all that. Dave and I arrived early. We were able to observe the Agape Class going through one final dress rehearsal. It was their care and dedication to getting it right that was mesmerizing. They cautioned each other and handled their props with such deliberation and tenderness. They sang with such joy and abandon: We Three Kings of Orient Are, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and the finale O Come Let us Adore Him. Spontaneously and without reservation one of the young men raised his hand in praise during the finale. All Heaven was pleased!

What Goes "Sproing" and Comes Unwound?

I’ll bet you can think of lots of things! My family probably thinks of only one. Me over Christmas. I have always looked at Christmas as the time to go stark raving insane in the spirit and emotion of the Day. This is partly due to the way we did Christmas at home when I was young. It is due to the fact I like winter and Christmas is part of that. There is a corner in my brain that will not shut down at Christmas time.

As a child, Santa did not just bring gifts, he brought everything! When I was coerced into going to bed on Christmas Eve, there was a bare tree that had been brought from the tree lot and into the house to thaw. When I woke in the morning, the tree was trimmed and lit, there was a mountain of gifts underneath, and the Christmas turkey was already being basted by Mom in the kitchen! The North Pole had come to our house in a matter of hours.

We were poor. I don’t mean destitute nor merely hard up. There was always food on the table and clothes to wear to school, but there were very few extras except at Christmas. Some examples of making things last and serve us well are the coats we had. For a couple winters, Mom, Dot, and Betty shared a coat. Dot was working so she was the wearer of the coat during the day. Mom used old jackets of Dad’s to go to the store, hang clothes, or clear walks. Betty was just coming into the age of young lady so she wore the coat for special occasions when she was invited somewhere. I had a snow suit made from an old winter coat of my father’s. Mom sewed that snowsuit and it was well made, insulated well, and warm. It was also too heavy for a four or five year old child. She would bundle me in long pants, warm sweater, and heavy socks. Then she would put on the snowsuit, add cap, mittens, and boots. The last thing to go on was a scarf that wound round my neck and covered mouth and nose. There I stood. If I began a rocking motion, I could perambulate upright to and through the door. Once outside, I would stand in the cold looking cross-eyed at the frost crystals forming on the scarf. Mom would open the door and order me to play so I wouldn’t get cold. She never knew I couldn’t play if I couldn’t move. If I fell over, I had to lie in the snow waiting for someone to stand me upright again. Once I grew strong enough to manage the snowsuit, it was becoming too small for me. Being stuck in a too-small snowsuit with a too-large sweater inside would cause such a strong sensation of claustrophobia I would erupt into a tantrum to end all tantrums. To this day, I am careful about the size of the sweater I try to put into a jacket or coat as that sensation once again trips triggers in my brain that are not pleasant to witness.

Being poor and seeing the mountain of gifts, kept me positive there was a Santa for more years than most of my friends. There were seven of us and my Auntie Evalyn at Christmas. So seven people were giving gifts to ME! I was the youngest with Pat next at eight years my senior. Most of the Christmas money was directed our way. Also, a lot of the gifts were hand-made. Mom, Dot, and Evalyn knit, crocheted, and sewed. Bargains were looked for at the stores. I suspect in some cases things were purchased during the year and saved for Christmas. Every Christmas I received three predictable things: a new nightgown made by mom in colorful flannel, a book, and slippers carefully knit or sewn. I continued that tradition with our kids and with our grandkids. As I grew, and learned the gifts were not so easy to come by, there were those Christmases where special gifts were asked for and received: my bride doll, skates, special books: The Wind in the Willows. I remember most that we all were pleased with our gifts and we all said thank you. I remember, too, that the gifts were cherished as “special” long after the gift opening was over.

Preparation for Christmas began right after Thanksgiving. Mom started by making fruitcake (not my favorite treat and I hated having to help make it as the fruit was sticky!) Soon after that, we had a party with Auntie Evalyn included to make candy. Chocolate fudge, peanut butter fudge with marshmallow center, Mexican fondant (which never set up correctly), gum drops of anise, mint, cinnamon, and lemon in jewel colors, divinity that set before you could finish dropping it and caused much laughter and panic, peanut brittle, popcorn balls, and some I cannot remember were packed in tins and put away for Christmas. Then the cookie baking began. Mom also made bread at least three times a week all year, but at Christmas there were different kinds of bread and always there were cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning.

When I was born, Everett helped Mom who didn’t recover well post natal. He was my hero and my comfort. When he went into the Coast Guard to serve in the Pacific during WWII, I missed him terribly. I was given a picture of him in his uniform to have for my own. It was under my pillow every night and carried with me for much of the day. I must have been three or four when he received leave to come home for Christmas. He and I were sitting on my new sled in the middle of the living room. I kept looking at him (and I do remember this clearly not just as a memory because I was told). I ordered him to put on his uniform. He did. I continued to study him and by this time I had his picture in hand. I finally sighed and said, “I think I like your picture better than you!” Such a sweet child was I. I think some of the pain Ev was personally experiencing as well as the things he was seeing in service were starting to make him the sad man he was for most of his life. I think it was that I sensed more than real physical difference.

When Dave and I married, it was awhile before we could settle into what Christmas was for us. In 1965, we married on December 23. We spent Christmas Eve with Dave’s family which was a blended family consisting of Dad; his second wife, Shirley; Kathy and Billy, Dave’s siblings; Linda, Anne, Carole and Scott, Shirley’s children. It was an enormous group around a table. Then we spent Christmas Day with my family which by that time included Dad, Mom, Pat and her son Larry. 1966 saw Dave in Viet Nam. Helen and I spent Christmas Eve with Dave’s family, and Christmas Day with mine. Dad was no longer with us as he died four days after Helen’s birth. 1967 Dave was back in the States, but stationed in Missouri until the end of December. He received leave for Christmas, but on December 13, my mother died. Dave came home on December 23, we bought a tree that was one of the last on the lot and about as tall as it was round so it looked more like a bush than a tree. It still stands out as one of the loveliest trees we have had. 1968 was the first year we developed Christmas for us.

In 1968 Dave and I were able to take two-year old Helen to see Santa Claus. She walked up to him wide-eyed and nervous. Once on his lap, she commenced screaming in real terror. We felt sorry for her, were embarrassed by the spectacle we were creating, and felt like laughing at the look on poor Santa’s face! As we walked down the street to our car with Helen between us, she kept sobbing and pleading. “Please don’t make me go see Santa again. I will be good. I promise I’ll be good. Please don’t make me go see Santa again!” After that, we would take her to a store where Santa sat enthroned in red velvet and let her make the choice. Did she want to go see him? The answer was no. She stood by the Christmas tree and pronounced she did not want Santa to come into her house! We asked her how she would get her presents. She dictated that we leave him a note to leave them in the hallway (apartment living at the time). We asked her what if someone took the presents. She capitulated that he could then enter the apartment but he was not to come anywhere near her bedroom. We posted a sign that said, “Santa Keep Out!!!”.

When Marc was born, we wondered what he would be like when he was old enough to go see Santa. When he was two, we visited the store, gave them the choice, and wonder of wonders, Helen took Marc by the hand and they went to see Santa. There were my cherubs marching up the ramp to see Santa, hand in hand. Once on Santa’s lap, Helen articulated her desires, and Marc sat silent and scowling. When the elf wanted to take their picture, she asked them to smile. Helen gave her wavery, shy little smile and Marc continued to scowl. Santa tried tickling him and jiggling him and asked him to smile. From somewhere deep in Marc’s feelings came a grumpy little voice, “I’se a Grinch. Griches don’t smile!” True to Grinch form, the next three Santa visits show non-smiling Marc on Santa’s lap.

By this time, Helen had become thoroughly enmeshed in Easter as the best of days. She liked the softer colors, the hidden eggs, and found it a gentler celebration. She put up with Christmas, but she loved Easter. Marc was not thrilled with Christmas, but he liked the gifts. He preferred taking each time of year in his stride and not looking too far ahead in the future. One Christmas night, Dave had left for work, the dinner had been put away and the kitchen tidied. I was sitting in a chair watching Marc play with one of his new toys (a truck or a tractor, I believe) and Helen had been looking at her new book. Helen suggested they play a game about the Easter Bunny. Marc vetoed the plan. She said, “You be the Easter Bunny and I’ll be a girl coming along the path . . .” and Marc again vetoed it stronger than before. She was silent a bit and then tried once again. “OK, Marc, it’s still Christmas but you are the Easter Bunny and I’ll come along singing a carol and then be surprised that the Easter . . . “ Whereupon Marc had enough, “Ain’t goin’ to be no son-a-bitchin’ Easter Bunny!” he exclaimed and took his toy to the other end of the living room. While I wasn’t pleased with his language, I had to stifle the laughter. Then I saw that Helen was actually holding a basket with plastic Easter Eggs she had dug out of the toy box to hide and find. I could hardly wait to tell Dave.

Obtaining the correct tree is an art. I don’t have the correct skills for the project. We used to cut our own. I think it was our third or fouth year of marriage that we had the tree that kept toppling over. We were using the stand that I had owned as a single for small trees. This was a large tree and the stand kept bending, spilling a couple gallons of water and breaking an ornament or two with each topple. We solved the problem by making a special trip out to buy a new stand. That tree was always a little askew, but there are no ugly Christmas trees.

After we moved to our first mobile home in February of 1970, trees were acknowledged to be something that would take up most of the small space that consisted of our living room. We went out on a near blizzard Saturday to cut down our tree. None of them were tall enough, full enough, dense enough to suit me. Dave would dutifully stand next to each tree I found and I would decide against it. The tree finally chosen was cut down, paid for and tied to the car with Dave protesting it was too big. I kept reassuring him with my best “Mother-knows-best” smile that I would trim it and make a wreath and we would have two decorations for the price of one. In truth, I did do a lot of decorating with hand-made, inexpensive decorations designed from Christmas wrap or twigs and berries I found on walks.

My first clue that I had overdone the happy-holidays spirit was when we could not get the tree through our front door without lopping off several branches. Once inside, Dave again suggested the tree was too big. As the tree thawed, the branches relaxed and Marc’s playpen disappeared from sight with Marc in it. When Dave was sitting in his chair, the branches of the tree touched his knees and the television had gotten lost in the forest! I assured him that I would have it all taken care of before he returned home from work at 2:00 AM. I had to prune that tree from top to bottom to keep the shape and eventually make it fit in our room. Sanity would have dictated that we throw it out and get another, but sanity has never been one of my strengths. I believe it was about midnight, when my mess was cleared out of the living room, a gorgeous wreath in best Victorian style had been created and I stepped into the shower to try to remove all the pine pitch from almost every inch of me. You cannot bend full branches into curved shapes without struggle, determination, and pure strength! I didn’t know you should trim them to twigs.

In the morning to surprise Dave, I struggled to lift my creation to a nail on the door. It shimmied slightly and then the wreath and the nail fell to the ground. I tried a screw in the door which tore out leaving a large hole. When Dave got up, he saw the wreath for the first time and was totally and wonderfully speechless. It was fully as tall as myself, was lush and green, and weighed almost as much as a Sequoia. I asked if he would please put a nail or screw in the side of the mobile home so we could hang it on the wall of the trailer (rather than the door which I had already mutilated). He tried to explain that the metal siding on the mobile home would not withstand the weight of my wreath. By this time I was in tears. He lifted it and asked how I could have managed to put it together and lift it myself. I said I had been determined we would have a lovely wreathe to go with the tree he already was angry at. He swallowed whatever it was he would have liked to say and dragged my creation to the light that stood in the middle of our yard. He propped the wreathe against the light pole and adjusted it until it no longer shut out so much light the sensor kept the light glowing in daytime. I told him I was sure the wreath would blow over so he better wire it. He laughed and said if we had winds that would blow it over our house would be gone as well. Then I had to say it. I could have kept it to myself, but I had to say it. “What if someone steals it?” That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Dave couldn’t answer because he was laughing so hard.

I, not too many years ago, did the same thing with an artificial tree. Trees in the woods and trees in the winter wonderland of Menards do not look very big. I never listen to Dave (well hardly ever). For most things I have wonderful space concept – just not Christmas trees. We have a lovely artificial tree now and it is largely due to the fact Dave let me pick the style and he picked the size!

Once Helen outgrew Santa, Christmas was an OK holiday with much of her time spent on the true meaning of Christmas and looking for the best and most unique gifts she could give on an income that would never be large – that of a pre-school teacher. She takes after Dave in ability to think of things that are imaginative, creative, and warm-hearted gifts. Marc’s personality has made Christmas always difficult for him. Some things that occurred near the Christmas season also added to his discomfort and depression. When he was sixteen, he became so enmeshed in silently rehashing his fears for the future, he threatened suicide. We are blessed that he is with us, but that was the first time I realized how difficult is the Christmas season for him. My dad always seemed grumpy at Christmas and decried the amount of money spent on wrap and ribbon as being one or two more gifts that could have been purchased. I think he knew there was too much frivolity and not enough meaning in our Christmas. Dave as well, struggles with Christmas coming at the coldest time of year and is often depressed because of the cold. His mother suffered a brain tumor and died between Christmas and his January birthday when he was eighteen. I still go “all out” for Christmas with decorations that I save from year to year, that have been given to me as gifts, and that I make. I try to temper my ebullience with quieter celebrations. Having Christ be the true center of the celebration helps me to see that not all people share my enthusiasm. Still there are those times when I feel the way I did when I was little and Christmas was a wonderland.

Dave has always tried to help share the magic of lights with me. He has helped put up lights when being on a ladder is not his happiest place. He has mumbled and muttered his way through popped circuit breakers and shorted light strings. Mostly he does these things in a charitable mood. He also has tried to surprise me with varying decorations added to the outside of our home. One year he bought dancing flame lights. These were lights that looked like little tongues of flame dancing on the branches. Our pine was too large to do justice to the single strand of lights. We had a mountain ash that was young and small so we decorated it with the lights. Every evening I would come home, plug in the lights and then be able to watch them from my rocking chair in the living room. One evening, we came home and I held the extension cord in my hands and asked Dave where he put the plug from the lights as I couldn’t find it. It was a little darker than twilight so with the slightly foggy air, I could not find the plug hanging down. I had made several circles around the tree. Dave had finished plugging in the car to protect the engine from the cold and with a disgusted snort came over to help me find the plug that “was right there”! He took the extension cord from my hand and looked at the tree. “The reason you can’t find the plug is because someone stole the lights!” he hissed. It is still a bitter memory when I think of how much I liked those lights. Added to that is the fit of giggles I get as I remember wandering around with the extension cord in my hand and no clue that the lights were missing! I had to learn to forgive the thief and to hope the lights meant even more to him/her than to me.

Dave also knew the winter I was struggling with the fact that my bus ride to and from work was long, the job I currently held was frustrating on a good day and abusive on a bad day. He bought two toy soldiers with lights in their backs. He put them on our front steps on either side to welcome me home. I was trudging up our street feeling really sorry for myself after the day I had put in. I glanced up and saw those two soldiers at attention, just for me. “Nutcracker men at my house!” I shouted. Then I burst into spontaneous rendition of the march of the toy soldiers from Nutcracker Suite. To answer your question, “No, the neighbors do not ever completely get used to me!”

Dave and I open gifts on Christmas Eve – well that was what we chose to do when our marriage was still young. He was not of the constitution to want children crying out Merry Christmas at the hour of four or five in the morning. It has served us well. Helen, like me, likes to not have the fun be finished when the last gift is open so we always save a few small gifts to be opened in the morning. When Marc married his Jenny (also a Christmas Elf), we celebrated Christmas Eve; and then they could visit Jenny’s family Christmas Day. Now that Helen has her Kevin, we often get together with Marc and his family Christmas Eve and then with Helen and Kevin Christmas Day.

The first year Marc and Jenny were together, we opened gifts after a nice dinner. Jenny introduced the custom of each person opening a gift in turn so all could see it opened. I came from the custom of rip into that stash and see what’s there. Jenny and Helen are shutterbugs so this also gives them time to blind everyone with multiple flashes as they record the event. I am sure that now that both girls have cameras, the flashes could equal a red carpet event. I digress. I had wrapped and bowed and stacked our gifts around the tree. Marc had played Santa and distributed them. It was Jenny’s turn to open a gift. She looked puzzled and then removed from a box a golf shirt, size XXL. “Oh! Oh, my!” I squeaked. “Wait until Marc opens his gift!” Sure enough, a few rounds later, Marc pulled for the sexy red teddy I had gotten Jenny.

Kevin and Dave went shopping for Helen one year. This was their first year of marriage (Helen’s and Kevin’s not Dave’s and Kevin’s). Helen had given a list of things she needed or wanted and I had tried to help with suggestions. They came home with things for me to wrap. There were two beautiful sweaters. They looked to be just about right and I marveled that the two of them had done so well – especially since Dave avoids trying to buy clothing whenever possible. I asked how they had decided on the sizes. With red faces and much laughter, they described how Kevin had tried on both sweaters to model for Dave. A whole family of shutterbugs and not one was present to record that event!

Then there was the year, Kevin’s second year with our family, where he received a pair of knitted socks from me. He always has cold feet and the job he held then was mostly outdoor work. He was pleased with the socks but didn’t say much. He put them away for a bit in spite of cold, drafty floors in their apartment. One morning he took them out and put them on to discover how really warm 100% wool can be. That was also the morning he realized they were the socks he had watched me knit when they were visiting during the fall.

There were mostly until lately homemade gifts. Nightgowns were made and given in the tradition of my mother. Our granddaughters especially liked theirs and learned to put in requests for color, short sleeves over long sleeves, etc. There have often been knitted gifts such as scarves, caps, mittens, headbands, socks, and afghans (crocheted if they were from Helen). One year, Bett and Belle received mittens. One pair was red, the other green. They were from Mrs. Santa. I opened a box with a pair of mittens from Mrs. Santa which were one red mitten and one green mitten trimmed in white. That way, I had a hand that would match each girl’s mitten when we walked in the snow. Just this past summer, the girls and I found my mittens and laughed about them. I had knit mine out of scraps of yarn left from theirs.

This year, it took me nearly an entire week to decorate the house. I would do a little and sit a little and keep up with the other duties of being a homemaker. I didn’t feel pressured to hurry. I was enjoying each thing I put out. To replace the tinsel Dave has never liked on a tree and I could never get enough of, we are using plastic or glass realistic icicles. They add movement and reflection to the tree even when the lights are turned off. Sun coming through them in the afternoon is lovely. I should qualify Dave didn’t mind the tinsel on the tree but he hated the process of getting it there. I am a “one strand at a time” draper and he would nearly go insane watching me let alone helping me.

We used to try to help our kids get a grip on their very mixed heritage by celebrating a Christmas for each country making their pedigree. St. Andrews Day on November 30, St. Nicholas Eve December 5, Santa Lucia Day December 13, and Epiphany on January 6. Each day would be celebrated with a meal from that country and a small gift. Tea, scones, shortbread, and trifle would make up parts of the St. Andrews Day. Oranges, candy canes, would be tucked into shoes on St. Nicholas Day and the meal might be sauerbraten or metwurst with gingerbread dessert. Sweet rolls in the morning and a meal of potato sausage, mashed potatoes and brown beans followed by lefse with lingonberries (Dave refused to have lutefisk be a part of it all). Epiphany (or boxing day) was usually a roast, with vegetables and potatoes around it and bread pudding when I could sneak it into the menu. To a lesser degree we have carried that on with the granddaughters. One year, I thought Marc and Jenny were going to put something in the girls shoes and they had relied on me. At the last minute, Dave and I dashed to their house with clementines and candy canes. When I met the school buss the next day, I was informed by Bett that St. Nicholas had left a moldy clementine in her shoes. That year, St. Nicholas came two nights in a row and the second night was better.

Over the years I have come to appreciate people are the gifts that are there all year. Giving to charity should not just be through the month of December. The entire time we have with those we love is more important that one evening or afternoon in festivity. Giving spontaneously from the heart with time, energy, or possessions is better than planning for a gift that may be returned December 26^th.

I have also learned that Jesus was born to a young woman and her husband because God willed it so. In that manger in the helplessness of an infant the great creator God lay dependent on the care and nurturing of a couple who only partly understood what was happening. Shepherds mastered their fear and went to see, then told others of what they found. Wise men found there is more than wisdom when the Spirit of God moves among men. A wicked king could not destroy. I know that the holiday that bears the name of our Savior is not always centered around Him as it should be. Still, whether those who don’t believe realize it or not, it is a yearly reminder that what happened so long ago is still being talked about and sung about. I am reminded that the Jesus who was born at Christmas time in helplessness, is the same Jesus who willingly became the way for me to escape my sinfulness. The same Jesus will one day return as a mighty God on a horse, and carrying the sword that will once and for all judge those who will not believe He is Who He says He Is. In the mentality of one who goes “sproing” at Christmas, still I can sing, “Jesus mild, holy child, sleep, now sleep.”