BS: A Dickens of a Christmas

Subject: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: DonMeixner
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 08:11 PM

From where I was standing in the window of Fingerlakes Photography in Skaneateles NY I watched Christmas hit central New York. I was unable to display at a craft fair that I always have, reasons of my own stupidity actually, I confused the week ends. My friend John Francis Mc Carthy said bring your stuff and set up in my shop for a few weekends, maybe make up some of what you missed out on. So I did.

Skaneateles has people in Christmas Carol costumes wander the village, sing carols, talk in dialect, be picturesque, and sell the odd chestnut. Great fun and a business draw to the community. The town crier, a Mr. Lawdley-Bellows (MMario) came into the shop with a prim and proper Head Mistress. They took time from their rounds and regaled us with song and then we shook hands and chatted a bit while I sold a few bracelets.

A short while later the duo of Merry Mischief, Wayne and Marilyn Fuller came in and gave me a holiday kiss but as I don't eat chocolate I got hug and a squeeze instead. The sang "Hey Ho No Body Home" in a delightful harmony unusual in married people.

Later on as the dark was coming on and the actors were heading back to become just folks again, MMario stood in the street and sang just loud enough to hear the occasional word, "Holy night" , "Saviour" , A weary World." "Night Devine." a small child watched and listened in rapt attention as this big man just stood alone and sang.

This is spirit of giving as I see it. A fiend gave me space to help me gain what I may have lost when by doing so he must be loosing something of his own wealth. Friends stopped by to share a hello and song. And a stranger unknowingly gave a small boy the gift of a song. And all about shared in the benefit.

The fascination is probably none of the givers realized that a gift was being given. And these are the gifts that will continue to be given by people who are unaware of their generosity and the recievers, like my self and the boy in the street, will remember the moment and cherrish them.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 10:15 PM

Thank you, Don, for sharing this wonderful story! I have had the chance to enjoy your own gift of jewelry making (my daughter still wears her bracelet every day!) and MMario's gift of song- it must have been a magical day.

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: TheMuse
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 10:34 PM

Definitely NOT "BS", but a touching story, all the way around.

Merry Christmas to all

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: Áine
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 10:38 PM

And I'll add my thanks for your sharing of this special tale, Don. The 'Big Fella' can weave a magic all his own with his beautiful voice, can't he? I can just picture him giving out with a song, while that little one watches in wonder. Thanks to MMario for sharing his gift with the wee one, and thanks to you for sharing your gift of the tale.

Happy Christmas, Áine

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: Spud Murphy
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 02:18 AM

In December 1950 I was longshoring on the dock at Valdez, Alaska. It had been, in truth, a dickens of a year. Mary and I had driven to Alaska over what was then called the Alcan Highway, possibly the worst job of road construction ever, anywhere, built by the Army Corps of Engineers strictly for military traffic to Alaska during WWII. After that, things just never got any better. We worked in a road house at Sheep Mountain on the Glenn Highway which was such a scabby place of public debauchery even Robert Service wouldn't have been caught dead in it. While we were looking for some other cave to hybernate in, we managed to total our car by hitting a patch of glare ice on the Eklutna River Bridge, and then, in order to have a place to live, we 'took care of' an economically distressed road house on the Glenn highway without realizing all that entailed while the owner and his family vacationed in California. We were personally so broke by then we were down to snaring snow shoe rabbits for survival rations. Then Mary gave me the exciting news that she was pregnant.

Two gypo freight haulers who frequently stoped for coffee at the road house we were babysitting were Jack Root and Vance Anderson, and they convinced us to move to Valdez where with their help I found work on the docks unloading cargo that was destined for Anchorage or Fairbanks.

The winter of '50-'51 in Valdez was a real doozy. Snowdepths all winter long ranged to 22 feet and better and the snow was so deep the entry to the Valdez Hotel got moved up to the second floor. People living in trailer homes had to climb down ladders in the vertical shafts dug in the drifted snow to get into their homes. The snow on Thompson Pass was so deep the snow plows couldn't break through and if they briefly did, the blizzard drifted the road in right behind them. For one ten day stretch no highway traffic of any kind made it in or out of town over the pass.

Vance and Jack were in Anchorage offloading freight when the blizzard hit a couple of days before Christmas. They made it back as far as Copper Center trying to beat the storm and that was where they still were on New Year's Eve.

I got my paycheck from the dock company on Christmas Eve and after I paid my bills at Beales' Rooming House and the Pinzon Cafe I had exactly twenty-four dollars and fifty cents left over to buy Mary a pair of ski gloves with a leather outer mitten and a knitted wool inner glove. Mary had two or three dollars left from her parttime job at the Valdez Pharmacy, which was also what passed in town for a general store.

On our way from the Pinzon to the pharmacy to do our shopping for each other we decided to stop at Vance's house to check on his wife Fanny and his two little boys, one of them six years old and the other eight. When we went in side there was an axe and what was left of a wooden kitchen chair in the middle of the kitchen floor. There wasn't another stick of wood furniture left, anywhere in the whole house. It had all gone into the kitchen stove during the blizzard.

I took the oldest boy and we went down to the dock where they kept the coal for the heaters that were used in winter for the produce trucks. We got a couple of gunny sacks of coal while no one was looking and managed to get it back to the house without getting caught. Then Mary and I left to finish our shopping.

When we got to the pharmacy I told Mary I didn't want any present and she said the same so we spent what money we had buying presents for the boys. I recall that along with some other smaller stuff we bought one a pair of six-shooter cap pistols, gunbelt and all and the other an eighteen wheeler just like his dad drove.

As we came out of the pharmacy the wind died down and the clouds cleared off enough to let a little moon come through and there were the biggest snow flakes you can imagine coming down. We headed back to Fanny's with the presents and at the first cross street we came to a couple of christmas trees leaning against somebody's back porch caught my eye. I knocked on the door and asked the lady who answered if she needed both trees, and if she didn't, could I have one. She told me I could have both, they were both surplus, but I only needed one, which we lugged with us to Fanny's place. The boys were in bed so we helped Fanny with the tree and then headed back to Beale's.

My mother had sent us a big fruit cake, which was one of her traditional things to do and some how it had come with the boat mail a couple of days before, just in time for Christmas. We counted up our change and had exactly fifty cents left between us so we took the quart thermos bottle and went back to the Pinzon and had it filled with coffee. It was still snowing big, soft flakes and Christmas music was coming from somewhere. We went back to Beale's and sat on the bed and drank cups of hot coffee and ate big slices of fruitcake. That was the most wonderful Christmas I ever had.

Spud

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 06:28 AM

Spud, I don't often get tears in my eyes from reading a post, but you did it. What a story!

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: katlaughing
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 08:08 AM

Spud, it is sure nice to see you hear, again. That is a beautiful story. Thank you so much for sharing.

Don and MMario, you make me proud to claim as friends and fellow Mudcatters. When I try to explain Mudcatters to someone, it is always stories like yours and Spud's which I relate. They always understand what I mean about us being a community after hearing them.

luvyakat

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: MMario
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 08:23 PM

Don - What a treat (and ego boost!) to come home to after a weekend away. It was my pleasure to see you, and more, to get another chance to purchase one of your excellent silver pieces. too bad the soundproofing is as good on those storefronts as it is...(or maybe not - I can't truly remember if I managed to actually hit the high note in that particular rendition of 'O Holy Night')

Spud - you have lived part of what we try to express in our Dickon's Christmas performances. Thank you for sharing your story. I hope I can take the spirit of your giving with me to my performances, because if I can succeed in that, then i will truly be accomplishing what we are trying to do.

Happy Christmas to all!

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: MMario
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 09:32 PM

- I would be remiss though, if I forgot to mention that another member of the forum, jmdornan, is also on the cast of Dickon's Christmas - as Lily Fezziwig, our Mayor's wife and President of the Lady's Society.

Working with Jill has been, and continues to be, one of my great pleasures. I don't think a performance goes by without my learning something from her.

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: DonMeixner
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 10:37 PM

Gee MMario, maybe you didn't, the windows still intact.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: A Dickens of a Christmas
From: Kim C
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 10:34 AM

Oh thanks a LOT Spud for makin me cry too. ;-)