The Congresswoman from Arizona has her astronaut and her DC compatriots. But I have my Louie-Louie Lad … bless him … and enough Louie-Louie Lasses to fill an auditorium! Thank you, Junior … Tugboat Annie (C) … Little Beth … Abba … Brooklyn Nancy … 40-count Molly … Kentucky … and more.
No one has more and better friends. No one has less reason to complain. So I won’t. Happy New Year, gang …
… and I look in the mirror and think, “Okay, smart ass, what are you going to complain about today?”
Gaby Giffords walks, for heaven’s sake … and if she does complain, I don’t think anyone hears her because she makes sure they don’t. She is looking forward to going completely back to work in Arizona and making the boys in Congress sit up and pay attention. Now there is a woman of great worth.
And the lads and lasses who come home from overseas wounded and hurt, inside and out, they put everything they have left … and in some cases it ain’t much, Big Louie … but they spend all their hearts on getting better. Not just well, but BETTER than they were before they went to war.
… and I look in the mirror …
Oh, I bitch and moan when things hurt or I can’t do what I used to do. I sometimes think the biggest thing I learned when I got hurt was how to complain. I try not to, you know, but that sure doesn’t always work. At least not for me. Typing this blog takes two fingers now; it used to take all ten and there weren’t many who could out-type me for speed and accuracy. I used to ride horses; not famously but well enough to win ribbons at shows and walk around (easily) with a shit-eating grin on my face.
I used to … and I look in the mirror …
And I remind myself that I can still do that, at least …
I find myself sitting here in my big, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I’m here to tell you that magic lives. And you can count on it to help you find yourself when the “Paper Cuts Fairy” seems to be running your life. It makes dreams come true. This Christmas was carved out of magic and dreams. It was honest and real…full of laughs and tears, love, fears…and most especially…magic, and dreams.
I believe in magic…and dreams…and the magic of dreams. Some magic you have to see to believe. But the most powerful magic works the other way around…you have to believe it first to see it. That kind of magic lives in the same place way down deep inside us…all the way inside…in the same place where our dreams are born…the place where, “yourself” lives. “Belief” is the lightning bolt that shocks your dream…and ignites your powerful personal magic.
And as you know, when you’ve been around long enough to be a member of the Louie-Louie Generation, you need all the powerful help you can get. My buddy Al just bought a new hearing aid. He told me “It cost $4,000 but it’s state of the art. It works perfectly.” I said, “What kind is it?” He said, “Twelve thirty.”
I mean, when you skip trick or treating because you get winded just ringing a doorbell, or you’re the only Power Ranger in the neighborhood with a walker, or you’ve given some serious consideration to asking your live in partner to chew your food for you…sometimes…you find yourself forgetting things. Big Louie, his own bad self, the Chief Mustard Cutter of the Louie-Louie Generation says, “God doesn’t let Louie-Louie folks give birth to babies because we might forget where we put them.”
If you’re a Louie-Louie Generation lad or lady, I’m sure you’ve found yourself looking for your glasses while you’re wearing them. You’ve found yourself standing in the middle of a room trying to remember why you walked into that room. And I know you’ve found yourself a little surprised at the face looking back when you look in a mirror. Been there, done that.
It’s a little frustrating some times, but…as long as you find yourself…you’re still cooking. And as long as you find yourself…and you keep believing in your dreams, you’re still hot. The Pimple People don’t like hot. They’re too kool, and they spell cool with a K instead of a “c”. Maybe they avoid using a c, because they don’t want to see…as in see where you are and what you’re doing, see people…one at a time…see the magic all around you…and the magic inside you.
I am going to keep reminding you all year long, that if you want…you really always can find yourself…when you respect your dreams enough to really believe in your own magic, even if…sometimes …the rabbit in the hat bites your hand…and people laugh at you, and tell you how not kool is is to be a dreamer.
Dick’s Details Quiz. (All answers are in the current podcast.)
1- What kind of clothes help make today’s movies popular ?
2- If Santa didn’t eat those cookies, where did they go ?
3- What ticks off the guys at the Viagra factory ?
Dick’s Details. They take your off your mind.
Speaking of dreams and magic, there have been four magical women in my life. My Mom gave me life, and she made sure I knew how to love the life she gave me. Another woman gave me a home, and four great sons…and I am so grateful to her, and so proud of them. Still another woman in my life is our daughter. She’s all grown up now. But ever since the first time I saw her…the day she was born…she had a look in her eye, and a special smile that has always made me try very hard to be the kind of man she thinks I am. And…my Lady Wonder Wench. She started me believing in the power of my own dreams. I tried to put it down in words all those years ago. And it became a story I called, “If It Weren’t For Dreams.” It’s in the current podast. It was amazing…what she did all those years ago. And it was just as amazing, very early this morning…watching her smiling in her sleep…with her head on the pillow next to me.
“If It Weren’t For Dreams” is in the lovin touch personal audio cd. If you like it, you can just keep the current podcast. Or if you want a fresh copy, just download it from the lovin touch icon on the home page.
We’ve seen a lot of New Years…us Louie-Louie Generation folks. We’ve learned some things. We know, for example, that your car will make it through the tunnel way up ahead without you scrunching down in your seat. We’re not afraid of the things under our beds. We know we can take total irresponsibility for our lives if we want to. And we sometimes do just that.
We know that we really DON’T know what’s going to happen in the new year. But let’s power up a little of our dream magic. Take a few minutes…it’ll be an interesting experience…grab a few deep breaths…feel where those deep breaths go…that’ll help you find your self. And I have a hunch you’ll also find a surprise when we’re finished doing this. It’ll be a surprise, left for you by someone you’re missing right now.
Let’s start with this Christmas tree…right next to my chair. I’m going to leave it up for a while. I love the scent, and the lights, the family treasure of ornaments, especially the forty year old tinfoil star at the top. Let yourself power up some of your own magic right now…grab the feeling of a few gentle snowflakes on your eyelashes… and the feeling of a pair of bright red, warm mittens warming both of your hands…and a dream about the most special Valentine’s day of your life…either one that’s past, or one that’s yet to come…and the touch of a lover’s hand on the first warm day of late winter, and seeing a rainbow…and the most brightly colored Easter egg you ever saw…a crystal clear star lit night? How about watching and feeling and hearing a thunderstorm …while you’re safe and dry inside…then walking outside into the scent of the warm, wet grass…warm sunlight on your shoulders…the clink of ice cubes in a tall glass of lemonade…soft sand between your toes…the Star Spangled Banner sung by 50,000 baseball fans on the fourth of July…a sudden early fall chill…trick or treaters looking up at you and laughing…everyone you love around your Thanksgiving table… with lots of turkey, and cranberry sauce…and then … Auld Lang Syne again. But this time…listen. Listen closely. Because when you listen closely enough, and you let yourself believe in the magic, you’ll find yourself…and the surprise I promised you. If you listen closely enough, I think you’ll hear the voice of someone who’s missing this year…singing along with you…one more time.
Happy New Year
This is it! The day that all those years ago, Adam turned to his wife, and said…”Hey…it’s Christmas, Eve ! (Sorry.)
My buddy Al wrote a Christmas story to remember last year in his blog at http://bananascrackersandnuts.com/bcnuts/. He gave me permission to put it here. Al and I go back a lot of years. His friendship is one of the best parts of Christmas. This is what he said:
I awoke to find myself in the less-than-bustling metropolis of Comstock, Michigan. No, I hadn’t been on an all night bender — it only felt that way. I had been on a fifteen hour drive with Vigi to visit her family for Thanksgiving and I did all of the ‘aiming’ for the final seven hours. It was our last chance to make the trip before winter closed in and I looked forward to spending a holiday with a house full of people once again.
Since the kids moved out and scattered around the country raising their own families, the peace and quiet I longed for while they were growing up had become deafening, especially around the holidays. Besides, things were getting kind of crazy at the radio station and we were sloshing our way through the middle of a financial rough patch at home; not the greatest timing with Christmas just around the corner.
After the obligatory slide show and catching up on several years of National Geographic, I was more than ready to prowl two of my favorite haunts in town — the only two haunts in town. It felt good not to be sticking to a schedule for a change and, in my absence, Veege could visit with her folks without being concerned about keeping me constantly entertained. After meandering through the aisles of the local Meijer’s ‘everything store’ I headed over to the one place that was an absolute, positive, don’t miss any time we made the trip: The Kalamazoo Air Zoo.
They had vintage aircraft from World War II and Korea through present day classics hangared there and many were still operational. On the right day, you could even catch a glimpse of a local pilot putting one of those two-thousand horsepower beauties through her paces! They had everything from flight simulators and a pink [believe it or not] P-40 flown by a very talented pilotress, to a mighty gull-winged Corsair — the plane that makes my heart go thump and has held the kid in me hostage ever since I first saw the movie Flat Top. You could actually walk up close enough to get a whiff of grease and oil mixed with just a hint of musty leather.
No tour of The Air Zoo was complete without a trip to the gift shop. I entered expecting to see the usual models, banners, books and displays — but what to my wandering eyes should appear but a shiny Corsair, perfect scale to the gear! She was carved from mahogany and painted in such painstaking detail that you could almost hear the roar of her engine. She was gorgeous! She was, also, $139 and I couldn’t afford to spend the price of a post card at that point.
I was unusually quiet for the last two days of our visit and most of the ride home. I am never quiet. Never. ”All right, what’s wrong?” Vigi finally ventured. ”Shows, huh?” ”Not if you’re a mime,” she answered. I told her all about the Corsair and explained that it wasn’t so much that I wanted it but that I couldn’t get it. We both had good jobs and worked hard. We weren’t extravagant. It’s not like it was a car or a boat or something — just a stupid airplane model that shouldn’t even require decision making. She reminded me that the financial rough patch was only temporary, and I stopped my whining. In my generation guys were supposed to do better than that for their families; the little airplane became a symbol that continued eating at me — and she knew it.
The remaining few weeks until Christmas sped by. Our ‘rough patch’ was beginning to smooth out and I had, at last, put the whole episode with the Corsair behind me — mostly. Christmas morning, the two of us did our usual Santa thing but when the ripping and tearing of brightly colored paper had ended, there was still one more present under the tree. She smiled and handed it to me. Unlike the others, I opened this one carefully unveiling a plain brown box. I was puzzled. Slowly I opened the flaps marked “This Side Up” — and what to my wondering eyes should appear but THE shiny Corsair! The one from The Air Zoo!
That incredible lady actually pirated all of the money from her change jar, where she had been dumping stray nickels, dimes and quarters for years, contacted the curator of The Zoo and ordered one very important Corsair for one grumpy old man. So many times through the years Vigi has lighted a torch when she found me in a dark place — and that Christmas, she did it again!
Thank you for sending your Christmas/Hanakah/Solstice/Quanza memories. I’m not sure about this one from Proud Podcast Participant Bill. But hey…Who knows ?
As a joke, my brother Mike used to hang a pair of panty hose over his fireplace before Christmas. He said all he wanted was for Santa to fill them. What they say about Santa checking the list twice must be true, because every Christmas morning, although Mike’s kids stockings were always full, his poor panty hose never was.
One year, I decided to make his Christmas wish come true. I put on a pair of sunglasses, and slinked into the neighborhood “Adult bookstore.” I decided to buy a standard, uncomplicated inflatable lady, that could also substitute as a fake passenger in my car, so I could use the car pool lane during the rush hour. I settled for a doll called “Loveable Lara.”
On Christmas Eve, with the help of a bicucle pump, Lara came to life. My sister in law was in on the plan, and let me in during the week morning hours. I filled Mike’s dangling panty hose with Lara’s legs and bottom. I also ate some cookies, and drank a glass of milk left out on a nearby table.
Mike called me in the morning to tell me that Santa had finally made his wish come true, and to accuse me of having something to do with it. He said the only problem with Lara, was that she confused the dog, who kept coming over, looking at the pantyhose and bark, start to walk away, and come back and bark some more. We all agreed that Lara should remain in her panty hose so the rest of the family could admire her when they came over for dinner.
My Grandmother noticed Lara as soon as she walked in the door, and said, “WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?” My brother explained that it was just a doll. “WHERE ARE HER CLOTHES ? WHY DOESN’T SHE HAVE ANY TEETH? I considered answering her questions, but I didn’t want to have to spend Christmas riding in the back of an ambulance, saying “Hang on Grandma, hang on.”
My Grandfather, a great guy with bad eyesight, sidled up to me and said, “Hey Bill, who’s the naked lady by the fireplace ?” I told him she was Mike’s friend. A few minutes later, I noticed him over by the fireplace, flirting with Lara. It was then that I realized that this might be Grandpa’s last Christmas at home.
The dinner went well. We made the usual small talk about who had died, who was dying, and who should be killed, when suddenly Lara made a noise like you often hear from a bathroom in the morning. Then she lurched from the fireplace, flew around the room twice, and fell in a heap in front of the TV. The cat screamed, I passed some cranberry sauce through my nose, and Grandpa ran over, fell to his knees, and began administering mouth to mouth resuscitation. Mike fell off his chair. Granny threw down her napkin, stomped out of the room, and sat in the car.
Later we discovered that Lara had suffered a puncture from a hot ember on the back of her left leg. Fortunately, with the aid of a wonder drug called Duct tape, we restored her to perfect health, so she can be with us to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
Still a little time to jump in and join the march of memories. The address for your Christmas/Hanakkah/Solstice/Qwanza stories is dick@dicksummer.com
Proud Podcast Participant Cathi wrote: “
Christmas to me is very much about childhood memories…making wonderful memories for my kids and grandkids …and my own childhood memories. You happen to be one of my childhood memories. My grandmother gave me a radio for Christmas the year I was 15…I plugged it in late that night and discovered you on the radio from Boston.”
Pretty neat that you remember, Cathi.
From Proud Podcast Participant “Texas Ty”:
Christmas Cookie Rules…
1. If you eat a Christmas cookie fresh out of the oven, it has no calories because everyone knows that the first cookie is the test and thus calorie free.
2. If you drink a diet soda after eating your second cookie, it also has no calories because the diet soda cancels out the cookie calories.
3. If a friend comes over while you’re making your Christmas cookies and needs to sample, you must sample with your friend. Because your friend’s first cookie is calories free, (rule #1) yours is also. It would be rude to let your friend sample alone; and, being the friend that you are, that makes your cookie calorie free.
4. Any cookie calories consumed while walking around will fall to your feet and eventually fall off as you move. This is due to gravity and the density of the caloric mass.
5. Any calories consumed during the frosting of the Christmas cookies will be used up because it takes many calories to lick excess frosting from a knife without cutting your tongue.
6. Cookies colored red or green have very few calories. Red ones have three and green ones have five – one calorie for each letter. Make more red ones!
7. Cookies eaten while watching “Miracle on 34th Street” have no calories because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one’s because they are part of the entertainment package and not part of one’s personal fuel.
8. As always, cookie pieces contain no calories because the process of breaking causes calorie leakage.
9. Any cookies consumed from someone else’s plate have no calories since the calories rightfully belong to the other person and will cling to their plate. We all know how calories like to CLING!
10. Any cookies consumed while feeling stressed have no calories because cookies used for medicinal purposes NEVER have calories.
It’s a rule! So, go out and enjoy those Christmas Cookies – we only get them this time of the year.
Still time to send your Christmas thoughts to Dick@DickSummer.com This very special Christmas poem came from Proud Podcast Participant, Jim King. It’s well worth keeping.
“Christmas Poem”
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS,
HE LIVED ALL ALONE,
IN A ONE BEDROOM HOUSE MADE OF
PLASTER AND STONE.
I HAD COME DOWN THE CHIMNEY
WITH PRESENTS TO GIVE,
AND TO SEE JUST WHO
IN THIS HOME DID LIVE.
I LOOKED ALL ABOUT,
A STRANGE SIGHT I DID SEE,
NO TINSEL, NO PRESENTS,
NOT EVEN A TREE.
NO STOCKING BY MANTLE,
JUST BOOTS FILLED WITH SAND,
ON THE WALL HUNG PICTURES
OF FAR DISTANT LANDS.
WITH MEDALS AND BADGES,
AWARDS OF ALL KINDS,
A SOBER THOUGHT
CAME THROUGH MY MIND.
FOR THIS HOUSE WAS DIFFERENT,
IT WAS DARK AND DREARY,
I FOUND THE HOME OF A SOLDIER,
ONCE I COULD SEE CLEARLY.
THE SOLDIER LAY SLEEPING,
SILENT, ALONE,
CURLED UP ON THE FLOOR
IN THIS ONE BEDROOM HOME.
THE FACE WAS SO GENTLE,
THE ROOM IN SUCH DISORDER,
NOT HOW I PICTURED
A UNITED STATES SOLDIER.
WAS THIS THE HERO
OF WHOM I’D JUST READ?
CURLED UP ON A PONCHO,
THE FLOOR FOR A BED?
I REALIZED THE FAMILIES
THAT I SAW THIS NIGHT,
OWED THEIR LIVES TO THESE SOLDIERS
WHO WERE WILLING TO FIGHT.
SOON ROUND THE WORLD,
THE CHILDREN WOULD PLAY,
AND GROWNUPS WOULD CELEBRATE
A BRIGHT CHRISTMAS DAY.
THEY ALL ENJOYED FREEDOM
EACH MONTH OF THE YEAR,
BECAUSE OF THE SOLDIERS,
LIKE THE ONE LYING HERE.
I COULDN’T HELP WONDER
HOW MANY LAY ALONE,
ON A COLD CHRISTMAS EVE
IN A LAND FAR FROM HOME.
THE VERY THOUGHT
BROUGHT A TEAR TO MY EYE,
I DROPPED TO MY KNEES
AND STARTED TO CRY.
THE SOLDIER AWAKENED
AND I HEARD A ROUGH VOICE,
“SANTA DON’T CRY,
THIS LIFE IS MY CHOICE;
I FIGHT FOR FREEDOM,
I DON’T ASK FOR MORE,
MY LIFE IS MY GOD,
MY! COUNTRY, MY CORPS.”
THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER
AND DRIFTED TO SLEEP,
I COULDN’T CONTROL IT,
I CONTINUED TO WEEP.
I WEPT FOR HOURS,
SO SILENT AND STILL
AND WE BOTH SHIVERED
FROM THE COLD NIGHT’S CHILL.
I DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE
ON THAT COLD, DARK, NIGHT,
THIS GUARDIAN OF HONOR
SO WILLING TO FIGHT.
THEN THE SOLDIER ROLLED OVER,
WITH A VOICE SOFT AND PURE,
WHISPERED, “CARRY ON SANTA,
IT’S CHRISTMAS DAY, ALL IS SECURE.”
ONE LOOK AT MY WATCH,
AND I KNEW HE WAS RIGHT.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS MY FRIEND!
AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT.”
This poem was written by a Marine.
Last few days for your Christmas notes. Please send them to Dick@DickSummer.com This one is from Proud Podcast Participant, DAVE:
Dick,
Last year I shared with you and your readers a Christmas tale about spending Christmas Eve walking with my first love around her suburban neighborhood, not knowing we would very soon part forever. I have been searching through my memories for another story to send you, but have been having all sorts of trouble.
It finally occurred to me what the problem is; that story is the ONLY discrete Christmas memory I have that really stands out! Those of my childhood have faded, those since meeting my present wife are all too similar, having all been spent with her family, and those in the middle encompass such a bad time that they have been banished from my memory.
It’s not that I have no memories of any other Christmas. But they are fragments, mental snapshots; images of the tree, of going next door to compare toys with the neighbor kid, of me placing my forehead against the freezing windowpanes to stare into the thin sheets of ice that formed on our windows, gleaming red and blue from the blinking Christmas lights that my Dad put up every year until the year when he said I could do it and it became my privilege ever after.
But there was one Christmas tradition we had for a while that I remember well. One December my Grandmother happened to mention to me and one of my older cousins that she was not going to put up a tree any more. She felt too old, too uninspired, to bother with it. So my cousin and I looked at each other, said so long and hatched a plan….
She and I went uptown to Holiday Tree and Trim, which was THE place in our town for Christmas supplies. We pooled our funds and bought a deluxe artificial tree, scads of lights, balls, tinsel, candles, garlands etc etc etc. Then we descended on Grandma’s place, a pair of oversized elves with a mission.
We Yuled the HECK out of that small apartment!
It perked her Christmas spirit right back up.
So NEXT year she asked me when my cousin and I were going to put up the tree. A quick phone call and my cousin appeared, the decorations hauled out and the season had started once again. It became a small tradition for Kerrie and I to decorate Grandma’s place for the holidays.
Like so much, though, it faded. I went off to college, Kerrie to a husband and kids. Holiday Tree and Trim is closed now, the store still standing empty, its faded sign a sad reminder of The Good Old Days. The whole town seems tired, waiting and hoping for something to happen. I live far away.
But for a few years we had a blast decorating Grandma’s place!
Happy Holidays, Dick!
Dave
We’re swapping Christmas stories, and it’s your turn. (To find out what this is about, go to www.dicksummer.com/podcast/latest.) The address to send yours is, dick@dicksummer.com This story is from Proud Podcast Participant, Sheri.
You asked for Christmas stories, but what I have to tell you is actually a No Christmas Story. In December of 1999 my two children moved with their father and their step-mother about 20 days before Christmas to Ramstein Germany. Their step-mother was in the Air Force and that is where she was going to be stationed for at least 4 years. I would get to see my children, once a year, for about 3 months in the summer. So we had Christmas early.. the apartment was decorated inside and out with the help of my finance…. and I knew that Christmas day was going to be rough, I would get thru it. We said good-bye to the kids around the 5th of December, and 4 days later, my finance left me…. no note… no phone call… nothing… just the key to the apartment in the mailbox and all of his stuff gone. I was devastated. There is no words to describe the totally emptiness ….. my children were gone, my mother had passed away in 98, all my family were more than 300 miles away and I had no way to get there. I woke up Christmas morning to an empty house, and an empty tree. The child in me felt like I had been the worst child ever, because Santa didn’t come.
This year is going to be better. I live with my daughter, there are 3 children… we will be going to my son-in-law’s parents house with a big family celebration… and I will be right in the middle of it all. I didn’t tell you all this to make you feel sorry… what I really would like you to do is tell you listeners and readers that if they know someone who will be alone at Christmas, and even if they have invited them to come share it with them… most (including me) won’t go because Christmas is family, and you aren’t feeling. But the next best thing they can do is go over to that person’s home… don’t call in advance… show up with a plate from your Christmas dinner, or a plate of cookies, just something to eat.. and a small gift… believe me when you wake up Christmas morning and have nothing to unwrap and alone…. having someone show up at your door… does so much for that person. The gift need not be much, a holiday candle, or any kind of candle, a small gift certificate to that place…. heck even a small fake decorated Christmas tree……. that person’s whole day would be so much better… you don’t need to stay long… it’s better if you don’t because they aren’t gonna want you to see them cry. Be Santa… leave the gift at the door.. knock and run.. sign the card… from Santa….. I know a lot of people do things for
the homeless at this time of the year, but there is another group that gets totally forgotten… and it’s those that have no one…. I’ve been there more times than I ever want to.. and I will never let anyone I know NOT have something to open on Christmas Morning… we are all still kids at Christmas… we still believe deep in our hearts that Santa is real…. and when he skips our house…. it really hurts…..
Now go watch a comedy in your big papa chair……. and I’m going to
listen to Quiet Hands as I fall asleep……. you put me to sleep every
night… and I mean that as a compliment……..
Thanks for sending your memories of the season. It you haven’t, please do. (The address is Dick@DickSummer.com) If you’re wondering what his is all about, please drop in on the podcast. WWW.DickSummer.com/podcast/latest
Here’s one from Proud Podacst Participant Carole:
Dick, I’m with you – regarding the Christmas and Holiday Season, with all the joy, love, and good feelings it entails.
I have one particular memory that I thought I’d share with you.
Like you, I was raised (mostly) in Brooklyn. There was something that my Dad and I did each and every Christmas season — usually between Christmas and New Years’. He and I would take the train to midtown Manhattan, and take a walking tour of all the beautiful decorations and attractions. (The tree and displays at Rockefeller Center, the animated windows of Saks 5th Avenue, and many other department stores which have long since ceased to exist.) If memory serves, there used to be at least 3 animated store windows in Manhattan, with Saks’ always being the grandest and most memorable. There was St. Patrick’s cathedral, the illuminated Snowflake at 57th Street & Fifth Avenue. We’d walk all the way down to 34th Street and over to Macy’s before stopping at a Chock Full ‘O Nuts for a cup of coffee and one of their memorable date-nut bread and cream cheese sandwiches before hopping the train home to Coney Island.
One year, Dad decided (because it had snowed and was very, very cold) that we’d do something different and drive into the city and park somewhere before taking our tour.
We got as far as the middle of Red Hook when the car began to sputter and we had to get off the Gowanus Parkway to get some help. He parked in front of a mariner’s bar under the el, admonishing me to stay in the car while he called for help. Someone finally came and got the car started again, but by that time it was pretty late, so Dad decided to head home thru the Brooklyn streets instead of risking getting stuck on the highway. We got as far as the middle of Bay Ridge when the car sputtered and died again. We were in the middle of a residential neighborhood with no stores or phone booths (this was LONG before the advent of cellphones, which we so take for granted today) and had no idea what to do. Dad had the hood open when a young man stopped his car to see if he could help. He was very kind, and got us going again. We finally made it to a gas station where they fixed whatever the problem had been. I called my Mother from the gas station phone booth and I was so cold I was shaking uncontrollably and my teeth were chattering.
I was never so happy to get home in my life! Mom greeted me with a glass of blackberry brandy.
Even though we never did make it to the City, it’s one of those memories that I treasure. I think that was actually the last Christmas Dad and I “did our thing”. Those times with him were very special. Interestingly, I haven’t thought about that for many years – but when you asked for a Christmas story – it popped into my head.
I was around 16 years old that last trip — but we started going into the city for Christmas when I was 8 or 9 years old, and the magic of the season has remained with me ever since.
Sometimes, things that seem unremarkable at the time turn out to be the most memorable and treasured of all!!!
