Friday, December 18, 2020

MY MOST UNFORGETABLE CHRISTMAS

                                     

 

I dreamed a dream the other night that this year at Christmas, I could just go back and relive one of the 79 Christmas’s I have experienced in my life, instead of creating another one. Although most of them are lost to memory, a few of them are still there in my meandering thoughts. I can remember my wife’s last Christmas before she passed. I remember the year after our mother passed, six days before Christmas. I remember Christmas’s when you couldn’t see the tree for the presents.  Kids parties at the fire station, when Santa came on the ladder truck. But my most precious Christmas was when I was about six or seven years old.

 

That year, 1947, my parents and my three brothers and I were living in an apartment fashioned out of the attic of an old house in Staples Minnesota. My dad worked in an ice cream shop up town. A job today that would be more appropriate for a high school kid, trying to make some spending money. The war was just over and there were no other jobs to be had.

 

Somewhere, Dad had found a Christmas tree and he’d hauled it up into our cramped living space and Mom decorated it with paper cut outs and popcorn strung into garlands. She even made an angel for the top. There was a string of bubble lights that dad would light for a few minutes each night and then quickly shut them off so they didn’t burn out. If one burned out, they all went out and he had no extras. Then came Christmas Eve and we gathered around the tree and the bubble lights stayed on at last. There was nothing under the tree. We sat there while Dad read the Christmas story from his bible and then he got up and went outside and came in with a red sled. It was obvious, it was a used sled that he had repainted. The kind with the metal runners. I remember Dad trying to be happy and festive and I remember Mom hanging her head and crying softly while she nursed the baby. Maybe it was the simplicity of it all and maybe it was just the humbleness of that Christmas Eve, that I can’t forget.

 

Christmas has never been about things for me. It has been about people. Suffering is always more easily tolerated when it is suffering shared. Happiness also is meant to be shared but the one ingredient, the one common denominator, that enhances happiness and tempers grief is love and that Christmas night was all about love and not any tangible things. Of the six players on that Christmas Eve, that night way back then, only three remain. We have all had wonderful lives. I for one am so grateful for the life I have had, the family I shared and the family I fostered and I’m so privileged to be a part of all of it. So grateful for the three family members that were there that night that have since passed on and the indelible memories I have of them. But the thing that makes me the happiest is just the fact that I remember that distant Christmas Eve, like it was last Christmas Eve. Something happened there that night that simply made it so unforgettable to me and I think I know now, what it was and I hope I never forget why. I wish I could drive back there on a quiet Christmas Eve and just park outside of where the house once stood  and let the feelings of that night wash over me once more. Maybe I could even bring some bubble lights.

 

Mike

 

 

Thursday, December 3, 2020

PEARL HARBOR

                                                            

A few years back I was standing on the deck of the United States Battleship Missouri, in Pearl Harbor. As I stood there under those big guns that cast a shadow over the grave of another American Battle ship, the sunken Arizona, I closed my eyes, I could almost hear the bombs that fell on our brave sailors that day. Then walking around the super structure and facing the stern where a podium stood, I could also hear the voice of General Douglas Macarthur at the surrender that ended that horrible war and took place right there on that deck. I have never been more humbled, prouder of this country, then on that day, some 70 years later. 

 

President Roosevelt called Dec. 7th 1941, the day of the attack, “A day which will live in infamy” but September 2nd1945, was the day that will live on in my memory. It was the day when a weary country celebrated the end of tyranny and the beginning of peace.

 

Today our country has all but forgotten the sacrifices that were made to achieve that peace. That cohesiveness that existed on that September day in our country has been replaced with political infighting and rancor that threatens our very existence. This by people in power who weren’t worth the sacrifice our country exhibited during that war. As I look out today, Doctors and nurses are fighting this pandemic. Volunteers by the thousands are handing out food and meals and I see in them that same spirit of World War II. But then I look towards Washington and our leaders and all of that goodness is overshadowed, by greedy power grabbing politicians on both sides of the aisle. They should all have to go and stand on that ships deck and apologize to the spirits, of those who gave their lives for our freedom. 

 

I read a book by Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. It should be something all people should read. Because within it he talks about the generation that proceeded World War II. The people who lived through the great depression and coincidently they were the ones who played the biggest part in fighting that war, here at home and abroad. It talks about the sacrifices they made for the good of this country. I was born in 1941 and the Great One was the generation that proceeded my generation. But their ideals were still apparent in my generation and we did subscribe to them. But over the years there has been a steady erosion of those ideals and principals and it shows. It should not take a World War to bring people together.

 

My generation is growing old and tired and what we want for this country is not going to benefit us. It’s for our kids and grandchildren that we worry. We take some blame for what has happened because in effect we allowed it to happen. I have in my yard an old apple tree that once was full of fruit year after year. But then about ten years ago it started producing less and less fruit. It still knew how; it was just worn out and at the end of its useful life. Next spring, I will cut it down and right next to it I have already planted its replacement. This year it had its first apples and its future looks bright. Maybe that’s where I am today in my own personal life. I still remember what goodness and love for America was all about but it’s time to step aside. It’s time for a new show in town. One that is progressive without being overly redundant about the past. A lot of the answers are already here. At least it’s a good place to start.

 

 

 

 

 

   

THEN THERE WAS ANDREA

  

Since we bought our place in Crosslake back in 1987, we have had quite a few different neighbors. They were all good people in their own way but like all things, some were better than others. A couple of them pretty much stayed to themselves and early on, one widowed lady and my wife became such good friends that after she moved away, my wife seemed to not want to take that risk of having another friend leave her, so maybe it was her way of just being gun shy. That was in the house to the west of our place. 

 

To the east of our place were a couple we got to know quite well and they were there for a long time. We took some trips together and seemed to get along well but eventually they too moved, although my wife had passed away at the time. My wife and this couple liked to go to casinos so she had that in common with them. Me not so much. My thoughts on gambling were. Why not just send them the money and save the gasoline?

 

Back to the house to the west. A man and his wife bought the house about twenty years ago and tore it down and built a beautiful house on the property. Then he too passed away but the family still owns the house. The matriarch of the family and I only call her that because she does fit the part, comes up from time to time but old age, her friends and her home in the cities seems to take up most of her time. There were four boys in the family who seldom come and so that leaves Andrea. She comes up when the ice goes out and goes in the late fall as do I. Andrea-- and I hope she forgives me for this-- is just south of 50. I’m just south of 80. She is as young at heart as very few women her age are and she just loves life up here.

 

Andrea will sit on top of her boat house for hours at twilight, with her camera, looking for that perfect sunset. She loves to go in her boat to the river with her music and soak up Mother Nature. She has a little dog named Brutus who is joined at the hip with her and maybe that’s all of the dependents she really wants. She has a small business and makes jewelry and crafts she sells at shows and in some stores. She has earned the title of an artist. My bedroom window faces her work area and at night when I go to bed, I see her bent over her table creating. She’s a night owl at heart and almost nocturnal and you seldom see her before 11 in the morning.

 

What I’m really trying to tell you about Andrea is what she means to me. This was the summer from hell when it came to having company because of the virus. So, Andrea and I would sit on my porch and talk for hours. We were two lonely ships that almost passed in the night but then said-- “We need to be friends.” I am her fixit man and she is my watch dog, keeping me off ladders and out of places I don’t belong in at my age. My children, who are all older than Andrea, know she is here for me, living by myself and that helps them not worry about me. I once read a book called Tuesdays with Morrie. It was about a young man, a student, and an old man, his college professor and the rekindled relationship they enjoyed in the fading days of the old man’s life. Maybe in a roundabout way that’s where Andrea and I are. An old writer giving his memories and what he perceives as his wisdom, to a young in heart and spirit lady, who is such a good listener.