A Child's Christmas Memory

The season is upon us now, and I think back on Christmas through the years. The best ones had my grandparents included. Each year they put up the silver tinsel tree and plugged in the electric color wheel that slowly changed the tree from silver to red, green, blue and yellow. Most of the ornaments were blue, and it just looked cool!

(Me and my favorite handwarmer at the Grandparents' farm.)

There was a heavy card nativity set that I just loved to play with. Grandma would let me set it up if I were careful, and I tried very hard to find just the perfect position for each animal and angel. There was always an Elf on the Shelf as well. I never knew it was an old tradition until just this year. They appear to be in vogue again, and I'm seeing Elf On The Shelf in the major bookstores. I guess everything old IS new again!

(Me in the hayfield. That's the old farmhouse in the back.)

Grandpa indulged all three of us kids, yet never had to lay a hand on us to punish us if we erred. All he had to do was look disappointed and sigh. Maybe shake his head. We would immediatly feel so bad that if he had actually whipped us we would have felt better! Grandma, on the other hand, was the disiplinarian. She actually gave me a knife once, and told me to go cut the maple switch for her to use on my behind!! Needless to say, all of us kids, once we experienced these two actions, did our level best not to experience them again!


Grandma and Grandpa usually slept upstairs in the attic during our visits. They had seperate beds, and I think it was so we kids could rotate sleeping with them. But there was this one very special Christmas Eve.....


As I was shaken awake by a gentle hand, my eyes opened to see my grandpa leaning over me, a quieting finger held to his lips. I crawled slowly at first from the warm bed, reluctant to leave the quilts behind. Then I remembered. It was Christmas Eve! We were going to sneak up on the barn animals and see if it were true that at midnight they bowed down to pay homage to the Christ child!

My feet wanted to dance, but the warning look from my grandpa, accompanied by an understanding smile, kept all dancing inside my body. We crept down the stairs, carefully skipping the sixth step that would have creaked and given us away to my grandma and my two younger brothers.

In the dark kitchen, grandpa helped tuck my pajama-clad legs into my boots, then zipped my coat against the cold Ohio winter night. He shrugged into his old barn jacket and smiled down at me as he slid my toboggan hat over my rumpled hair.

We unlocked the back door, freezing as the loud snick of the bolt rang through the air like a gunshot. We stared at each other, but didn’t hear anyone coming to investigate. Grandpa opened the door slowly and we stepped out into the dark.

A light snow was falling, the flakes drifting slowly past us, glittering in the soft illumination of the old security light in the corner of the farmyard. The snow crunched beneath our boots as we walked softly towards the barn, my small mittened hand clasping his work-roughened one.

Despite the crunch of the snow underfoot, I thought we were as good as spies, or even Indians.

When we got to the barn, grandpa slid a flashlight from his pocket to check his wristwatch before unhooking the barn door clasp. The hinges squeaked loudly in protest as he swung the door open, shining the light into each of the 3 stalls.

Two cows and a pony stared calmly back at us, one cow chewing her cud. None of them were concerned in the least at our intrusion. To my great disappointment, all three animals were standing on their feet, not kneeling in the straw. I heaved a sigh in disappointment, feeling my grandpa’s hand come to rest comfortingly on my shoulder.

We left the barn and headed back to the farmhouse, my disappointment making me drag my feet. The squeaking hinge had warned the barn animals we were there, and since they wouldn’t kneel if humans were present, or so the legend goes, they remained on their feet.

Grandpa stopped suddenly and swung me up into his arms in a big hug, then whispered in my ear, “We’ll catch them next Christmas!”

I hugged him back, suddenly happy. No one else would have gone with me at midnight to the barn! Not my dad, nor my mom. Not even grandma! I had the best grandpa in the whole wide world!

Yes, this really did happen. I can still feel the disappointment, so keenly sharp, when we opened the barn door only to see all the animals standing. It would have been so normal to at least see a cow lying down as she chewed her cud, but no. They were all standing, which was unusual for that time of night. ButI was just a child, and it never crossed my mind at that time.

Grandpa was generous to a fault. If a neighbor needed help, Grandpa was there. If his grandbabies needed or wanted something, he did his best to fill the need, or take care of the want. So when I wanted to see the animals kneel to celebrate the birth of Baby Jesus, the Grandfather part overrode the farmer part. I was indulged, even though it meant getting up in the middle of the night and going out into the cold for something that was just a story.>

Memories

I’m working on a labor of love at the moment. I’ve been doing it off and on for about five years now. I’ve been scanning every old family photo I can lay my hands on, and even had my dad’s slides – all 50 years worth! – shipped to me. I invested in a slide converter, and got to work sorting out the chaff from the wheat.

My goal is to make a cd or 2 (or 3?) for each family member so they can have a history of the family in digital record. Maybe my niece might like to see the genes that are in her makeup: good country folk with determination and hard work in their blood. People who lived through good times and bad. People who lived, loved and laughed, no matter what. Or maybe for the rest of us to look back in fondness and love to the people who shaped us and guided us as we grew up.

In my dad’s slides I found whole projector trays full of shots from Air Force base air shows and ceremonies. One particular set caught my attention: an old man receiving an award. Checking my dad’s notes, I discovered that this was the celebrated flying ace of WWI Eddie Rickenbacker! Now, after decades of languishing in my mom’s basement, he was finally seeing the light of day once more. I contacted the AF historian and asked if they were interested in receiving these slides. After assuring them that I really had no place for them, they agreed to take them, and seemed quite happy to have them. I received no other thank you, but I hope Eddie is not once more condemned to a dark box in some basement.

There was also a BUNCH of shots taken at the Columbus Zoo over a 40 year period. Even after taking out any shots of family and relatives, I was left with quite a few shots of the zoo in general. I thought maybe the zoo historian would be interested in these shots, as they show how much the zoo has changed. Again, on initial contact they were very happy to hear from me and eager to receive the slides. Again, no other thanks, but I’m not so concerned as I am for Eddie.

In the middle of converting the slides I thought family might be interested in, of which there are two 3” binders full of slide sheets that hold 20 slides each, my slide converter died. Thank goodness for Walgreens! The hard part is after they’ve been converted; I had to check each shot and see if I could rid them of the strange colors, tones, scratches and weird “artifacts” left behind after decades of storage in a basement. I developed “Mouser’s Wrist” and “Right-Click Thumb” after hours and hours and hours of performing cleanup on the digital shots. Some just weren’t salvageable, but I discovered that when they were changed to black & white, it was almost magical: you could see clearer detail. Like this shot of the back pasture. The main color is red, not black, yet converted to b&w, what a difference.

The "before" where only the cows should be red...

...and the "after". The spring is to the left, next to the tree in the back.

Grandpa and I would sit in the back yard, right about where this shot was taken, and pick off groundhogs across the “crick” and up at the spring with his old rifle. Darned things had a passion for my sweet corn, and I didn’t want to share! I got real good at picking off groundhogs.

In dredging up these slides, I’ve also dredged up memories that have long lain dormant. If not for these old shots, these memories might easily have gone to the grave with me. Like the shot of my grandpa sitting on the floor to accommodate my toddler height as I washed his face with a warm washcloth. He had so much patience with all three of his grandkids! I remember trying to be real careful and not rub too hard, or get soap in his eyes.

Me combing my grandpa's hair before washing his face.

I think all three of us kids grew up worshipping grandpa. If we got caught doing something wrong, he could lay the biggest guilt trip on us just by shaking his head and looking sad. That hurt us worse than if he’d picked up a paddle or belt and spanked us! Now, grandma? She’d make us go out and cut our own switch to be used in the punishment! So we learned darned quick not to misbehave at their farm.

I’m also adding scans of old photos I found when last I visited my mom. She had had open-heart surgery and was home recuperating, so what better bedside activity (to keep her in bed!) than to dredge up her own memories of people and places for the unmarked photos she had in a big box under the bed. I could hear the smile and love in her voice as she regaled me with stories about her own beloved grandparents and other relatives. There are two photos in particular of my great-grandparents that really speak to me.

Great-grandma back at the WVA farm.

Great-grandpa still in OH, and his bicycle.

On my own grandparents farm was a small house set apart from the farmhouse. It was only a two room house with a back porch that was constantly sagging, and an outbuilding and outhouse reached by a wooden walkway, and a dirt basement. Mom tells me this was built just so grandma’s parents could move in from their West Virginia farm in their old age. But. This only lasted for three months, as they weren’t used to electricity, running water in the kitchen, or the modern luxury of a telephone. They moved back to their WVA farm, much to my grandma’s chagrin.

Great-grandma at the "new" stove. She never got used

to running water in the kitchen.

I have photographic proof that I actually met some of my great-grandparents, even if I have no memory of it. Unfortunately, I never met THIS g-grandma, my maternal grandmother's mother. She was the favorite of my mom's, and their memories will live on in passing down my Mom’s stories and memories. And in looking at these photos and slides, more stories come to light, more memories appear as if by magic from far corners of memory. There are all sorts of photos in that old box, and yet more in albums just recently discovered. Black and white shots, a few colored, shots of people we knew and people we have no clue about.

I’ve discovered the old saying about the oldest child having the most pictures taken, while the youngest child will be lucky to find one of just himself, or even one period. As with all things, the first is a novelty, and it goes downhill from there. Luckily, my family was a camera-toting family, and ALL of us kids appear in many of the photos!

As a kid I was usually annoyed, sometimes highly, with allthe picture taking by my mom and grandma. Constantly having to stop, pose and smile in the middle of an activity was rather irksome to a teen and pre-teen. Oh, and checking to make sure the sun was in your eyes to get the best shot. What fun. Yet now as I sort through and arrange all these paper-to-digital memories, I am happy. Memories captured by grandma’s old Brownie camera or the Polaroid, snapped by relatives both known and unknown and by virtual strangers bring back the feeling of carefree summers on the farm, visits to relatives in WVA.

That’s the main purpose of this blog, actually. To tell others about our family, to let them know about a time and people long gone, just as we ourselves will be to later generations.