A memory for these times
Dear Charlie, Tony U, and those yet to be,
Written March, 2020
I once wrote a story entitled, “Christmas Tree, Oh! Christmas Tree.” I love – yeah, “love” is the right word – a snippet of text embedded in that story. It is a part of my past that has a special place on my bookshelf of life, a peaceful memory that pushes aside the fog of time, and takes me to a snowy day over 60 years ago. I close my eyes and I feel it – that sweet touch that runs down your neck, into your shoulders, through your chest and into your heart. It takes you back to a moment that lifts your spirit, to a place where it sometimes needs to go. I close my eyes and simply remember…or perhaps, remember simply.
It took mom a good 15 minutes to bundle me into all the cold-weather paraphernalia that was required for a five-year-old: two layers of pants; an uncountable number of shirts covered with an oversized sweater and one of dad’s cleaner welding vests for good measure – a down-right snug fit over all those layers; two pairs of gloves; black rubber buckle-up boots that reached to my knees; and then that stupid, brown, earflap abomination hat thing she made me wear when the temperature got below 70 – you heard me, 70, as in degrees! She finally buttoned the earflaps under my chin and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “You listen to your brothers up there,” she ordered. I waddled out back, rolled onto the oversized pop lid that we used for sledding – a good three feet in diameter – and the three of us began our ascent of the hill to fetch our Christmas tree…
Gary leads the way, crunching through the deep, unbroken snow; Danny follows his footsteps with me in tow. I am not much bigger than a knot on a good-sized tree, so the distance is vast, the wonders countless. Each wonder a story, many yet to be lived.
We scale the slope beside the apartment where I will one day ride my new sled all day long, its runners transforming snow into mud. Just there, past the corner of the apartment, seven bee stings in the neck, the very day of an “important” football game – importance is certainly relative, isn’t it? We top the hill, following my brothers’ icy, billowing breath, where mom, dad, the family’s English Setter, Ben, and I spent at least one casual summer afternoon; my first memory, right there, in the shade of the June Apple tree. Oh, that tree, a story in itself: dark, skeletal branches that haunt me with its eerie silhouette in winter, tempts me to climb for “the best June apples in Boyd County” in summer and offers solace, comfort, love when my family falters with the pain of loss – life in the shade of the June Apple tree. Just beyond the tree, we follow the path past the empty chicken house where dad will raise several coveys of Bobwhite quail. Before I was born, Gary stood on the chicken house, stretched for an apple, fell and broke his arm – life happens, with or without me, doesn’t it? The chicken house will be torn down and replaced with yet another dog pen. There, I will witness the miracle of birth as Ben’s daughter, Nelly, gives us Ben II and Lad, the two dogs that will be my companions for nearly all my bird hunts. And on the other side of that pear tree, just beyond a briar patch, stands our destination – a miniature forest of Christmas trees. Gary stops, turns, and looks back on the way we came. I follow his eyes back to the smooth blanket of snow broken only by my brothers’ steps and the track of my pop-lid sled.
From our vantage point, we see our home nestled into the bank just off the narrow road that runs the length of our tiny valley. Heavy snowflakes tightly weave themselves into the cold mist and fog, forming an expanse of white that stretches forever.
A heavy, wind-blown accumulation of snow reaches up the gray sides of our home, stretching to join the drooping, fang-like white blanket covering the roof, as if trying to consume the little dwelling – the maw of a large, white beast. The consuming, deafening silence reduces the home to insignificance to the rest of the world, as if nothing would be lost if the white maw closed.
But the windows glow from within with a dim, yellow light; smoke softly curls from the redbrick chimney and melts into the falling snow and near reaches of the valley; the two occupants that have made this small home are well and waiting.
Here and there, a distant hillside, house, tree etches itself into the shadowed-white landscape, as if a painter’s first strokes on virgin canvas. The only noticeable sounds, my brothers’ frosty breaths, the crunch of snow beneath their boots and my pop-lid sled gliding behind. Sitting in my pop lid near the earth, I hear the large snowflakes delicately settling onto the blanket of white that cloaks us.
If lucky – and in this telling, I choose to be – the long, low drone of a train’s whistle and muffled click-clack of wheels and rails sing to us on its lonely journey as it passes by Pappaw Lewis’ country store.
Although just three young boys, usually lost to the beauty of the world in our varying pursuits of bobwhite quail, beagles, tinker toys, army men, and perhaps even girls, the artistry of the valley stretching before us and the small gray dwelling cradled close to its heart does not escape us. We absorb this fleeting scene into our separate memories, each likely capturing the specifics a bit differently than his brothers. But I know that today, as I write these words, that we have this special place, this special time, this special moment, that is forever in the lives of brothers – no matter our so very divergent paths, views of life and how to live it.
Here too, more than 35 years later, I will stand with three small companions, one in my arms, his head resting on my shoulder. I will point and excitedly say, just like a little boy returning home – I was, you know – “This is where your daddy played when he was a little boy.”
Baba