Sunday, October 19, 2008

A CHILDS DREAM...

I remember ---well I don't remember exactly how old I was when we started having Christmas.
We lived on South Conejo Ave., straight across from the airport. The area is hard to find now, since there's been so much road work and the name of that part of the street was changed to Tioga.
Anyway, to get back to my story.

You could go straight down the hill to old Uncle Dans' big two story brick house at the bottom of the hill.
A little farther down, at the Tuolumne River, was a pipe that poured water into the river and to the right was Legion Park.
When you hit the river, if you turned left and went along the river, you went into the trees and brush.

One day just after Christmas, my youngest brother, James, took off to the river. After a while I was out in the yard and I saw little James really working hard trying to get up that hill.
I started to go and see about him, but then I saw he was going a little faster so I waited.
When he got to the house, everyone came out to see what was happening.
Believe it or not, he had been pulling a big used Christmas tree behind him!

Mom looked so sad and surprised and she said, "Well, I didn't know it meant that much to him."

I'm sure people saw him dragging that tree up the hill, but I don't think it bothered us any.
I can't remember if we set it up in our little house, but I do know Mom made sure we had a tree from then on!

*From James:
It made such an impression on Mom that, one Christmas when Mom and Pop and James went to Mendota to pick cotton a few days before Christmas, they moved into a tent the grower provided and, when Christmas Eve came, they didn't have a tree. Mom went across the street to a fence that ran along an open field and got a tumbleweed and brought it to the tent.
She tore up pieces of colored paper and tore off pieces of tinfoil from cigarette packs and made popcorn stringers and hung it all on the tumbleweed to make a Christmas Tree.*

I guess the times when you are older, some things are clearer and I'm blessed with all the memories I've kept.

'Till next time----- Miz Micks