It is Christmas Eve and I have nothing to do other than try to stay out of my present wife’s way. She is totally involved in getting everything ready for this evening’s repast, and then the noon meal tomorrow, Christmas. That is why I have decided to come to the key board and put together a couple memories that will mean nothing to you but help me stay safely out of the first wife’s way!
Being from swamp east Missouri (actually the swamps were farther south from where I was raised and they had been eliminated by the installation of many levies, many years ago) we used the same words as normal people but they occasionally had different meanings.
I had understood there were 3 meals each day (if you were lucky) and they were breakfast, dinner and supper. Now that I am trying to be a somewhat normal person, I still forget to use the word lunch instead of dinner.
By the way, the above statement has nothing to do with this uninformative, nonprofessional presentation of a non-journalistic endeavor!
I was relating an old Christmas memory the other day as I talked to my sister over the phone. I told her I remembered a gift I had received from her when I was about 10 or 11 years old. Back in those days there was a cowboy TV show named, “Have Gun Will Travel”.
This cowboy always had a concealed derringer, and the small derringer always saved the day. I wanted one real bad and my sister bought it for me for Christmas. Good Christmas!
I remember one year I bought my mom a lamp for Christmas. The light bulb would heat up it would turn the inside making the seen on the outside seem to move. The picture was of an old Model “A” car. I thought I had bought my mom the best present ever.
I only remember one year when it snowed on Christmas Eve. The next morning I had decided I would pull my sled across the yard and tell my younger nephews, when they come over, that it was tracks, from Santa’s sled. My dad pointed out that I would need to explain my foot prints. That put the kibosh on that.
There was this one Christmas when I had asked for a set of barbells / dumbbells. I was an early teenager and my dad had purchased a set from, “Montgomery Wards”, when they were located in down town Cape Girardeau, Mo.
Dad did not bring them home when he bought them and on Christmas Eve he took me along to get them (maybe he wanted me to carry them). When we arrived at the store dad went to the sales person and asked for the barbell set assuming the weights would be in a box.
The sales person checked, and said the only set they had was the set on display. Dad asked, “How am I going to keep my son from seeing the present”. The sales person said, “You aren’t”! We carried my non-surprise gift out to the car.
That is all the Christmas memories that I can conjure up right now.
I haven’t asked Santa for anything this year. I did see one thing that I almost bought for myself (a sock cap with the word Ford on it) but when I looked at the price ($13.00) I decided I could do without. $13.00 for a sock cap that is an advertisement for a car maker, I just could not do it!
We hope there is something nice under the tree for you!
Don Ford
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