Miracle of the Hilltowns: One of the best Christmas gifts
MIDDLEBURGH — Above freezing temps plus snow on the ground equals fog. Driving across Cotton Hill Road proved to be a bit of a chore on Dec. 10; these OMOTM eyes don’t care too much for the bright lights of approaching cars. But we made it to the Middleburgh Diner in time to join our fellow OFs at the long table for a fresh cup of hot coffee.
I expected to hear Christmas preparation stories, but instead I sat down to a discussion of how nice and warm and sunny it was on the beaches of Florida while the rest of us enjoyed the last couple of weeks of cold and snow.
One OF did talk about his daughter who is visiting for the holidays. This is a common phenomenon that occurs in the lives of some of the OMOTM.
I believe it is one of the graduate courses taught at parent school when we were a lot younger and just learning about this thing called “Parenthood.” Some of the OFs either missed or skipped that “Coming Back” chapter or didn't believe it would ever apply to them.
To borrow a line from the movie, “Pretty Woman”: “Big mistake!”
The OF was talking about how his daughter really missed having a nice big, beautiful Christmas tree all decorated with her favorite ornaments. The OF patiently explained how he hadn't had a Christmas tree in nearly 20 years.
He had downsized his house, but, like all OMOTM, hadn’t particularly downsized the amount of furniture he still has. There simply was no room for a tree.
But then, also like all OMOTM, he started looking around and said to himself, “If I take that chair (that nobody ever uses) and put it in the spare bedroom, scrunch this and that a little, and make the decision that we don’t really need the full width of that doorway, and if I bought a small tree — it might just work.”
He then wondered about what had happened to the price of a Christmas tree over the past two decades. How bad could it be, if he bought a really little tree? Pretty bad.
He said his little tree costs more than twice what he paid for the big tree that they used to have in their big house with the vaulted ceilings.
And, as for the string of Christmas-tree lights, again he asked us to recall how it was that all those lights that were working just fine when we packed them away last year, had suffered some tragic losses over the course of one year. Imagine the body count of Christmas-tree lights that would/could occur over 20 years!
Well, you are all aware of the classic Christmas movie, “Miracle on 34th Street.” We now have our very own Miracle of the Hilltowns: The lights all worked! No fatalities.
Now the last thing the OF wanted us to try to imagine was how his little Christmas Tree that Could, would look when decked out with enough lights and all the special ornaments from the big trees in his past.
He said it looks like the best Christmas tree he has ever had. He and his daughter will share this memory, of this Christmas, and this Little Christmas Tree that Could, forever.
I think our OF and his daughter just gave each other one of the very best Christmas gifts they possibly could.
Driving to Florida in the fast lane while Mom sleeps
It seems like whoever returns from some well-deserved vacation time to a warm climate just has to announce to one and all exactly how warm and nice it was where he was, as compared to where the rest of us were. I suppose some of us are going to hear this story repeated over and over in one form or another, from now until spring.
This particular conversation morphed into a general discussion of Florida, specifically, on how long it is. It really is a long way to travel from Jacksonville in the north to the tippy end of Key West. It was compared to driving the length of the New York State Thruway from New York City to Buffalo and on to the Pennsylvania state line.
As many men my age can relate to, I used to drive my mother down to Florida for the winter, first on the East Coast then on the West Coast before she settled on Sanibel Island.
The only quick story I'll pass along about those trips was about the time she fell asleep for a couple of hours and when she woke up she asked where we were. I told her and gave her the odometer reading.
She did the math and all at once exclaimed, “Douglas! Do you know how fast you were going?”
(As a son or daughter, we always knew when we were in trouble when our parents used our full given name!)
I think I must have said something clever like, “I was just going along with the traffic.”
That line never worked with the police either. Everyone knows how I-95 is famous for being such a slow road in Georgia in the late morning. Anyway, I did move over to the right lane. For a while.
Those OMOTM who gathered at the Middleburgh Diner were Harold and Wally Guest, Ed Goff, George Washburn, Wm. Lichliter, Frank A. Fuss, Miner Stevens, Jamy Darrah, Roland Tozer, Jake Herzog, Frank Dees, Russ Pokorny, Jim Gardner, Lou Schenck, (last week I left the “S” off his last name, sorry about that), John Jazz, Jack Norray, Dick Dexter, Gerry Cross, Herb Bahrmann, Warren Wilsey, and me.
All of us, theOld Men of the Mountain, not only wish each other, but all of you at The Altamont Enterprise and the readers of this column in particular:
A Merry Christmas and
Special Holiday Season to All.