From
Linda Lee Greene Author/Artist
That Christmas Weekend of
1952, there was a radio somewhere in the farmhouse of my maternal grandparents,
tucked away, gathering dust. It hadn’t been turned on much since World War II
when the family was anxious about the fate of their eldest soldier-son in
battle with the Germans. By 1952, television had taken the place of radio in
most homes, but such a “newfangled machine” hadn’t yet found its place in the
farmhouse. The local newspaper held on as my grandparent’s major source of
information, and by way of it, they knew that Harry S. Truman would hand over the
keys to the White House to Dwight D. Eisenhower the following month; that
Elizabeth II had succeeded her deceased father to Great Britain’s Royal Crown;
and that war was on yet again, but in a faraway place known as Korea. That
Christmas Weekend while my parents and my little brother and I were at the
farm, the bulky and black rotary-dial telephone that sat on the stand by the
front door of our own house eighty-five miles north of the farmhouse, could
ring off the hook for all we knew. No answering machine or voice mail would
alert us to missed calls upon our return home. Such conveniences were as yet to
come into existence. Like the television, the telephone was another “newfangled
machine” that Poppaw scoffed at and Mommaw wanted but wouldn’t get until
several years later.
Christmas was like any other day on the farm: the cows
still needed rounded up and fed and milked; the hogs still needed slopped; the
chickens still needed fed and their eggs gathered; and the outdoors dogs and
cats still needed attended to, as well. That morning Poppaw was agitated over a
fox that was menacing the chickens. His .22 in his broad and brawny farmer’s hands,
he had slogged across the nearby soupy fields in hunt of the fox, but the wily
creature had outsmarted Poppaw again.
Discarding his muddy boots at the back door and propping
his rifle in a corner of the entryway, Poppaw traipsed in his stocking feet to
the coffee pot on the kitchen counter. He poured a cup of the steaming brew,
lightened it with the heavy cream skimmed from the milk of his best milk cow,
loaded it with sugar, and chugged it. And then he trudged to his rocking chair
in the front room and draped his coat on its back. Poppaw always kept his coat
within arm’s reach and his footwear at the back door, because there was no
telling what awful things could happen out on the farm. One of the horses could
lose its footing on an icy bank of the creek and plunge in to freezing
ice-capped water way over its head—especially Old Roger. “That horse ain’t got
the sense he was born with no more. He’s jist gitting too old and simple,” Poppaw
often complained. Or that crafty fox could get into more devilment. He could
sneak back in the henhouse and send the chickens scurrying and flopping and
squawking into the farmhouse yard and up on the porch just as soon as Poppaw
was out of the way.
Poppaw’s
rocking chair was perpetually pulled up as close as possible to the chugging
wood-burning stove. The farmhouse was abuzz with the voices of Poppaw and
Mommaw’s several visiting adult children and their spouses and their children.
I was in hog-heaven because being with my grandparents, my uncles and aunts and
cousins was my favorite thing. I was champing at the bit to get Christmas
morning underway. In my hands, as always, was my mother’s camera with which I
would memorialize my family’s Christmas in black and white images. After what
seemed an eternity to my fidgety cousins and me, Poppaw lowered his Abe Lincoln
frame to his creaky rocking chair. It was our signal to begin our Christmas
celebration.
My
mother had stewed over what to get Poppaw for Christmas as she had done every
Christmas of my nine years of life at that point. And as usual, she settled on
two flannel shirts, two pairs of wool socks, and a couple packs of Mail Pouch
chewing tobacco. Just about everyone else had decided on flannel shirts, wool
socks and chewing tobacco for Poppaw too, and by the end of the hour, Poppaw
had enough of them for an army. I snapped the photo of Poppaw opening the first
of our gifts to him, and now I share it with you. Happy Holidays to you and
yours. May it be as happy as ours was on that Christmas of 1952.
Oh, and
Poppaw! I hope yours is a rocking good 125th birthday up there in
Heaven today.©
***
Several years ago, I wrote a
novel about Poppaw and Mommaw, their kids, and extended family titled GUARDIANS
AND OTHER ANGELS. The novel is a blend of fiction and nonfiction and includes
transcriptions of actual letters the members of the family wrote to one another
over the years and provide a poignant glimpse into the lives of a particular
strata of American people during the twentieth century. Among the catalog of my
books, GUARDIANS AND OTHER ANGELS is my favorite. The act of writing it brought
me home again after decades of rootlessness and alienation from my authentic
self. It is a novel written from my heart more than any before then or
afterwards. If you feel inspired to read the book, it is available for purchase
at http://goo.gl/imUwKO.
#Christmas, #1952, #HarrySTruman,
#DwightDEisenhower, #QueenElizabethII, #WorldWarII, #Americana, #FamilySaga, #GuardiansAndOtherAngels,
#LindaLeeGreene, #Author/Artist
