Christmas Memories
Whenever the season turns cold and decorations start coming out of boxes, one cannot help but think of Christmases past. As time goes on, memories start to blur. While this blurring is sad, the result, however, is a composite of adventures and pleasant times which can keep us warm during the coldest and windswept of days.
Christmases in days past were not about just gifts. If they were, then I'd have many sad recollections indeed. Before the 1970's, there were no malls in West Virginia. Therefore, everyone was at the mercy of door to door salesmen, Murphy's, Hartley's, Golden Brothers, and Jones.
Hartley's was nice but expensive, Golden Brother's had faded clothes in the windows, Jones charged you interest from the moment you left the store (worse than the mafia), Murphy's was the dime store, and salesmen were robbers who got your money every week. Is there any wonder then that our presents amounted to handkerchiefs and fruit? In other words, you went oh oh oh instead of ho ho ho. Not that we had totally bad gifts but, compared to what you saw in other people's homes, one didn't jump for joy upon seeing your orange.
I do remember that one time I did get a little red toy car with electric headlights. I was so proud of it that I showed it off to everyone. What a mistake that was. A relative of mine decided to screw the headlight into a light socket--just to see what would happen. After mother cleaned up the exploded glass, I was left with a car that had a black eye. On that Christmas Day, I learned to keep your candle under a bushel and to keep your toy car way out of sight.
A few years later, everyone else learned not only to keep their lights under a bushel but to also lock the door. When we came back from Mass one year, all of the presents that Santa was to bring were gone--at least that is what we were told. It is possible that they forgot to go shopping?
Since one never counted on gifts being the main source of joy, celebrating together was the main highlight of our Christmas 
Spirit. While each year was never the same, we normally followed the format of a Christmas Eve Party with the neighbors, opening of the presents, and Mass on Christmas morning.
It was because of the Christmas Eve Parties that mother turned against fish. Father invited everyone over for some Christmas Cheer, squid, and fried smelts. Guess who had to clean and cook the smelts. After a few years of this activity, she would gag at the site of a Long John Silver's.
During these parties, a special neighbor always entertained the crowd by having too much cheer. After father died, mother ended the Christmas Eve Parties to the sadness of many in town. One actually said that missing that special neighbor ("full of cheer") took all the fun out of Christmas Eve.
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without special dishes. To this day, we still make Christmas Jello--a concoction devised by Aunt Sara Bell. It is a nice treat if you just eat it once a year. This special serving along with fruit cake drove home the fact to us that the holidays were here.
Our decorations were not expensive or fancy but they illustrated our spirit. We would go into the woods and get branches of laurel and put them all over the house. The extension service used to give away baby pine trees (fifty in a bunch). So, we had our little 
nursery all along the garden. Each year, we'd have tree from that one planting. When they got too big, we cut the tops out of them for our tree. A couple are still around and they are big as monsters now. Later on, mother got a aluminum tree which father did not particularly like but it was sort of cute.
As I have been trying to say, being together was the most important thing for our Christmas. Accordingly, I'll never forget the time we drove down to North Carolina to pick up Tony. How any of us lived to see that Christmas is a question beyond me.
Back in the 1950's, none of us were experienced travelers. Judging from what we saw, no one in the country was experienced at traveling either. Due this lack of experience, we had the adventure of a lifetime.
You have to remember some things as I go through our experience: (1) When we first got the ‘49 Chevrolet, we turned around halfway to Grafton Dam State Park--25 miles away--because we thought it was too far. (2) Who knew how to read maps or judge time? (3) Going down to NC that fall was the biggest trip we had ever taken. (4) We didn't know that it snowed in the mountains. (5) Interstates did not exist. (6) States and towns
were not geared for tourists. The first question asked was always, "What are you doing here?" And,(7) our thinking was that we'd go down, get him, and come home--simple.
We left late in the evening for our 30 hour non stop trip. We left late at night to get the most out of our time. Father got off of work and we got in the car. As the snowball-size flakes fell on us in Elkins, I knew that this adventure would be of epic proportions. Left and right, we saw trucks and cars wrecked and stuck in the snow piles. If we were brave, we could have gotten some free milk. A dairy truck had gone over the side and bottles were everywhere. We, however, kept on going into the snowy dark with our 1949 Chevrolet. All along the ice slicks, I kept hearing that tune in my head, "See the USA in your Chevrolet." It is too bad that Dinah didn't bother to sing the second verse-- "And, be killed today."
As we drove through curvy roads, the towns we saw were much less than comforting. To save money, all of the towns turned off their streetlights after 9 p.m. All gas stations also expected you to be home at night too. So, if you had a problem with your car, you might as well insert a stick into your bellybutton. In that way, the cops could remove your frozen popsicle bodies with greater ease.
At this point, I would like to thank the State of North Carolina for their wonderful roads. Back then, they had to be run by the State Mortuary Association because they really supplied a lot of business. Grandfather Mountain was the worst. It is so big and awful that it is now a tourist attraction. Back then, it kept people from becoming grandfathers. After passing more milk 
trucks and crashed cars, father said, "bye bye mountain, I'll never see you again." On the way back, the Blue Ridge Parkway was closed so he got to see that wonderful mountain once again-- he was thrilled. As a side note, my future wife was attending Duke University and her family was driving down there to pick her up. While on Grandfather Mountain, they ran out of gas and my to be father-in-law had to walk down the Mountain to get some fuel. Who knows, we may have passed right by him as he tromped down the incline.
Seeing Tony and getting him into the car was the highpoint of the whole trip. For a moment, we remembered what we were doing and why. Happiness and the joy of the season returned. Then, we were kicked off the parkway due to snow and fright came back. As I said, we wanted to make time. We had planned to go down and come straight back. As the fog, snow, darkness, and ice took their toll, we gave up. We needed to get a place to sleep.
The weather, however, was so bad that we couldn't see the hands before our faces. Therefore, we pulled off into closed Kroger parking lot. Our car was small and there were five of us. In order for everyone to stretch out, Joe volunteered to get into the trunk for a few hours. Unfortunately, he spoiled our setup. Due to his constant shivering, he made the car shake and none of us could catch a nap.
After he started to make us carsick with his non stop shaking, we pulled him out of the trunk and started back out into the snowy night. Luckily, there was a hotel just down the street--The Buff Orphanton (place where a lot of orphans were made in the buff?). This was my first experience with a Hotel Hell. Dark, dreary, dirty, expensive and no lock on the door. The decor of the lobby was highlighted by a couch with springs hanging out of the bottom. All of us, however, were most offended at the price. There was a big sign that said "Rooms $2.50". Little did we know that it was $2.50 per person. If I had known that, I would have slept in the trunk.
Despite the carnage we saw throughout our trip and the constant snow, we made it home and we never got stuck. Our heads were numb due to the lack of sleep and food--we never thought about taking a picnic basket.
Looking back, I believe Christmas was special that year because we had survived a near-death experience for our togetherness. We had earned a Merry Christmas and we got it. From then on, however, father never drove down to North Carolina and had Tony fly.
jvm
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