If loneliness is a place
High on a mountain top
Or in the dungeon at Calais
Why not also at a bus top
Is loneliness a fearful thought
Perhaps a time to wonder why
Or is it a moment when caught
That allows the mind to fly
High on the wall of the garage
Not all alone but with others, too
The dull color belies its former gleam
So many years have dropped away
As the burnished surface faded
But long ago when I also shone
We two were almost inseparable
Just a simple pair of pliers
But how often they eased my day
Dooley’s Hardware Store was located in my childhood home but is now long gone. The store occupied a full city block and sold much more than hardware. It was a great place to find bargains at any time of year. I recently saw one of their ads from 1970s (posted on Facebook) advertising Christmas trees at wholesale prices. I could not believe the store was listing trees of 1-2 feet for 59 cents, 2-3 feet at 98 cents, 5-6 feet for $2.85, and—get this—7-8+ feet trees for $3.80!
After the recent years-long drought and frequent fires out here in the West, Christmas trees have become a rare commodity and that circumstance will continue into the foreseeable future. This fact makes the impact of the Dooley’s ad even more startling.
The ad brought back a memory from when I was six. I do not know what the going rate for trees was back then, but I am sure that my dad recognized a good deal and went for it. He headed out to Dooley’s alone to get a tool of some kind. I don’t remember if he found the tool he wanted. What I do remember is him coming back with the biggest tree we ever had. He struggled to get it through the wide front door. The bottom of the tree was so big, it had to be forced through the doorway. And it was heavy, too. Dad’s feet shuffled across the floor as he grunted with effort.
“Bob, it’s too big!” Mom told him before he even set it up. “It’ll never fit. What possessed you to buy such a big tree?”
“It’ll be fine,” said Dad. “Don’t worry about it. You won’t believe how cheap it was.”
“They probably wanted to get it off the lot,” my Grandma grumbled to herself.
We rushed around moving things out of the way to make room. Finally, he maneuvered it into the dining room with our help. Then he positioned the base and began walking the tree into an upright position. The top of the tree, about ten to twelve inches of it, scraped against our nine-foot ceiling and bent into an L-shape when the tree was settled.
“You’ll have to cut it,” Mom told him.
Dad huffed. He was not pleased. To cut the tree, he would have to get it back out of the house. His shoulders drooped as he thought about it.
“And you’ll have to trim some of the lower branches while you’re at it.” said Mom. The tree took up more than half of the dining room floor’s width and length. Opening the door of my bedroom at the far end of the dining room would push against the branches on the that side of the tree. This was a BIG tree.
“You’ll have to take it out through the kitchen,” Mom told him.
While Dad gathered his strength, Mom and Grandma hurried into the kitchen and service porch to move things out of the reach of the tree.
“No, don’t do that,” said Dad. “I’ll take it back out the front and down the driveway into the back.” Which he proceeded to do, once again forcing the base of the tree through our front door. Grandma grabbed a broom and began to sweep up the needles that had been dragged from the tree, shaking her head, “Tsk, Tsk.”
My cousin Jeanie was staying with us that Christmas. We both wanted to go outside to see Dad cut down the tree, but Mom forbade it. “You two stay inside.” So, we had to be content with watching through the windows as Dad dragged and hauled the tree down our front steps, and back along the driveway, through the back gate into the yard and then behind the garage. Afterwards, we heard the sound of the manual saw, stroke after stroke, as the tree shrank.
Both of us hoped he would not spoil the tree. It had been so pretty, except for the bent top. It was beautifully shaped and full—no big bald spots. It was a wonderful tree. We both knew why he had bought it. How could he resist? Santa Claus would be so impressed. We waited anxiously while Mom and Grandma fussed about how to cope with such a big tree. They worried, too, about what it would look like when Dad was finished with the trimming.
At last, Jeanie and I saw him bringing the tree back toward the house. “He’s coming,” we shouted.
My dad, at first, headed toward the much smaller, though closer, back door. “You can’t bring that through here,” said Mom, changing her mind from before. “It’s much too big. You’ll have to take it back out the driveway and in through the front.”
So, Dad hauled the tree around the side of the house and through the front door once more. Jeanie and I tried to help him by grabbing branches to pull on our end.
“Get away from the tree, girls,” said Mom. “You’ll get hurt and you’re in the way.” We backed off.
When the tree was standing upright again, the top looked odd. The point that should have been there was missing. Later we would discover that our tree topper would not fit over the branch left available for it. We ended up fashioning a decoration that would have to serve.
Even with some of the back branches trimmed, the lowest branches still spread across one-third of the floor. We could not center the tree in the large picture window as we usually did because my bedroom door would still hit the lowest branches. Eventually, Dad had to clip a few of those, so my door could open easily.
We ran out of ornaments. Mom took us shopping downtown for more. Even so, we did not have quite enough. Dad had to buy another string of lights for it, too.
“It’ll be fine,” he said when we mourned about too few ornaments. “After we add the tinsel, you’ll see. It will be fine.” Dad was a master at hanging tinsel, much better than the rest of us. Mom was too slow and fussy, and Grandma was almost as short as Jeanie and I so the top branches were out of our reach.
The memory of that tree always has always made me a little sad. Dad had been so proud of the tree when he brought it home and so disappointed when we were not as happy as he imagined we would be. Over the years, we reminded him of his mistake, never making it clear that we had long ago forgiven him and that we loved that tree.
It was a beautiful tree, a magnificent tree. We never had one nearly as big again. And Dad never again bought a tree without us. Even so, one year we ended up with a sad last minute pink tree, but that’s another story.
With a distant light as my guide
I stumble through the darkest night.
Fear grips my inner soul while I move
Slowly, step by step, towards the promise
Of that light, but when nearly there
The light seems to shrink as I can
I see it is but one small candle.
How bright it seemed in that black eyed day
Yet here it is just one small, pale-yellow flame.
The promise in that light is clear to me now.
The darkest, most fearful night can be braved
If only one small candle lights the way.
I saw a man build a dream.
At first I could not believe
But when I tried to awaken
I was already too wide awake.
Suddenly it seemed all too real, true.
Just as if I was really there
Taking my place in that man’s dream.
Everything we did seemed so real
I felt as if I had always
Been there in that man’s dream
But it was not a dream—was it?
For there is a place of dreams
And they do come to life sometimes
For those who believe in dreams.
Early twilight had arrived
The sun had dipped into West
Trailing sunset washed away
By the incoming blue of the night
The evening breeze was so soft
That it caressed all in the world below
Such simple pleasures to these old eyes
Sitting on the porch above the land
Seeing life’s renewal just below
As a mother duck with three behind
Crossed through the meadow in such majesty
Now the night sky puts on its show
When nightfall blacks out all light
But the septillion distant stars
Sleep deeply now my gentle soul
For a beauty of life is all around.
As she sits there
Head bowed, arms folded
Asleep, as if going back
To a youth now faded
Yet, an awareness is still there
And her hair now shines
With the glory of age
Badge of a life well lived
Her years of service framed
In my need of her heart
One more moment to treasure
When the First World War began, my mother was not yet two years old. When it ended, she was six. Her father and both his brothers had enlisted in the Marines during this war. Only one served outside the US, her father’s younger brother Nile.
Though she never was sure where exactly he served, my mother fondly remembered Nile calling her his “little chiquita,” a term he had learned while he was away. I have since learned he was stationed as a lowly orderly serving in the officers’ mess in Cuba. Nile died in 1919 not long after the war ended, but not of injuries.
If it surprises you that Cuba figured in the strategies of the First World War, you are like me. Neutral for much of the war, their Red Cross served on the European battlefront for some time. Finally after a many futile protests sent to the German government about the continued indiscriminate sinking of the ships of non-combatant countries by German submarines, the island nation finally declared war April 7, 1917
Cuba had diseases for which a young man from West Virginia was unprepared. Nile contracted a recurring fever while there which plagued the days of his return home after the war. Before the war Nile often performed as a singer at local events. He sang everywhere. At home he sang along with the performers on the radio and would often sing the arias of opera from the records in the family’s collection.
One Friday, he was singing just for fun on a street corner. A car passed near carrying a talent scout from the New York Metropolitan Opera on his way to Pittsburgh. He stopped to give Nile his card and set up an audition for the following Monday. It was just three days away, but it was an appointment Nile could not keep, for on Saturday his fever returned and he lost this last battle.
Such strange events happen on Hallows’ Eve:
Garden gates taking flight to land on roofs,
Large farm wagons standing on their ends,
Strange symbols appearing on our windows.
Sometimes a noise at the door,
But there is never anyone there
Except when those witches, goblins
And ogres shout, “Trick or Treat!”
Then stand and wait.
At times, after the midnight games, I can hear
The ghosts or ogres and goblins wailing.
There, do you hear that wild cry?
Could that be a banshee in the meadow?
Hurry, lock the doors, pull down the shades,
Turn off all the lights and quickly hide.
Then came the rattling of chains on the porch,
But when Dad opened the door,
It was just our neighbors come to party
For the rest of All Hallows’ Evening.
When your birthday comes
I think of train whistles
Far off on the night air
Echoing down the valley
The taste of fresh fallen snow
Of winter raindrops falling
A spring flower, fall leaves
Of a heart so gentle
It grieves even small loss
A soul that reaches out
Easing someone else’s hurt
May your day glow as old gold
And bask itself in my love