Treasures

I happened to remember this story the other day, and decided to have my husband unearth it from the archive of an ancient website.  It is one I wrote 10 years ago.  It is based on actual events, but details have been added to make it more entertaining.   My family really did gather at my Uncle Dick and Aunt Clara's house every Christmas Eve until 1971.  That was the year we lost Uncle Dick, and Christmas was never quite the same without him.  He was such a sweet man, and I miss him AND my Pop every year about this time, more than usual.  
Family memories are a true treasure.  
The broken bottle of liquor I mention in the story was a real event, only it was a half-gallon of vodka that took the wax off the kitchen floor when Pop dropped it.  (My aunt and uncle were visiting, and Mom and Aunt Clara had been making vodka gimlets, I think maybe they got carried away a bit.)
This is my first Christmas without Mom.  I haven't spent Christmas with her or my family since about 1988, but she was always there to call and talk to.  (Though recently, it had been a challenge, as she had dementia.  She could remember the past quite well, though, and we shared many happy memories.)
There is a picture that I hope to find and include with this, of me with my dog in front of the Christmas tree, but I don't know if I'll have time to hunt it up!
Well, I couldn't find the photo. It is SOMEWHERE in the mess that is my office file cabinet.
Today we will share time with friends and with our St. Paul's family,  
Our wish for you is all the peace, light, joy, love, and hope of the season, and health, happiness, and prosperity in the year to come!
Please enjoy my little story. 




One Crazy Mixed Up Christmas
By Carolyn Kay Armistead, 1996

It started off like any other Christmas Eve. Mom made me wash my hair first thing in the morning, so it would be curled by time to go to Aunt Clara and Uncle Dick's house that evening. She set it for me as soon as I got it dry enough with my sister Susie's old hair dryer. I had to play all day with rollers in my hair. Not fun. They itched, and sometimes even pulled my hair and hurt me. But, Mom wanted me to have curly hair, so I wore them. (Why couldn't she ever accept the fact that all of us, except Walt, had straight hair just like Pop's? Walt never let his get curly, he kept it slicked down with "greasy kid stuff" as Pop called it.)
Anyway, things started off OK, like I said. Pop came home from work early, bringing the usual turkey AND a ham, and a bottle of liquor of some kind that would join the unopened multitudes on our highest kitchen shelf. (Someone at Pop's job always gave everybody a bottle of "holiday cheer". My parents weren't drinkers, so every year, the stockpile got bigger.) Mom then got after me to get dressed, she brushed out my hair, looked disappointed with its insistence on remaining fairly straight, and told me not to get into anything while she finished getting ready.
Walt showed up with his girlfriend, and we all got ready to go. That is when things started going nuts. We were going to ALL pile into Walt's Fairlane. Me, Mom, Pop, Walt, and his girlfriend. Well, theoretically, there was plenty of room. We loaded up the trunk with the presents for Aunt Clara, Uncle Dick, my cousins and their kids, and all piled in and got ready to go. The car started, no problem. Walt went to put it in gear, and the gearshift came off in his hand. I don't mean the knob came off, I mean the entire gearshift came loose from the floor of the car. Ooops.
Well, Pop said, we'll just have to take Mom's car. No, Mom said, there's not enough gas in her car, and besides, its been making that funny noise again. We all groaned. You couldn't go anywhere with Mom in a car making a "funny noise." She would spend the entire trip with her eyes clamped shut, whispering prayers under her breath. By the time you got where you were going, everybody in the car would be nervous.
So, we had no choice. Mom and Pop and I, and as many of our presents as would fit, scrunched into Pop's 1963 Volkswagen Beetle. Walt and his girlfriend had to take his Ranchero, which ran OK, but didn't have a heater that worked at the moment. Mom gave them an afgan or two, and told them to be careful. We started out in our weird caravan, down the crazy freeways from Compton to Placentia. We made it just fine, much to Mom's great relief. (Pop's driving in the VW always made Mom really, really nervous. She was always sure we were going to get squashed.)
There we were, at Aunt Clara and Uncle Dick's house, and already all the cousins were there. (I was hoping there would be some food left for us, until I remembered that Aunt Clara wouldn't let ANYBODY eat until everybody she expected showed up. Besides, with Aunt Clara around, you NEVER went hungry!) Uncle Dick met us at the door with his usual big smile and warm hugs for everybody. I usually didn't like huggy grownups, but Uncle Dick was different. He kind of looked like Santa without the beard and white hair. He was always laughing and joking, too. His eyes twinkled and his mouth was "drawn up like a bow" just like the Santa in "A Visit From St. Nicholas". (Which he read to us kids every Christmas Eve, by the way. ) Aunt Clara greeted everyone from the kitchen, where she was, as usual up to her elbows in wonderful smelling food preparations. Mom went in as always to try to help, and as always, Clara got her a cup of punch and shooed her out to the living room and told her to relax. ("After all, Sarah Gene, you'll have all that work tomorrow when we all come to your house." That's what she always used to get Mom out of her tiny kitchen on Christmas Eve. It always worked, too.) The usual round of cousins asking where Susie and Jim were came then, and they were answered as always: "They have Christmas Eve at Jim's folks' house." ( My sister and her husband didn't know what they were missing this year!)
Well, the cousins and I were just about done comparing Christmas lists, and getting ready to start bugging the grownups with the usual "When do we eat?" "Can we open presents yet?" litany that we observed every year, when there was a knock at the door. We were puzzled, the whole family was present, who could possibly be at the door? Aunt Clara thought perhaps one of the neighbors needed to borrow something, so imagine her surprise when she found Santa Claus on the front porch. Seems he'd been making the rounds of the neighborhood, "doing last minute checks for my naughty and nice list" as he put it. Well, Aunt Clara decided to be nice and let him in, she gave him some punch, and all us kids took turns sitting on his lap to have our picture made, and tell him what we wanted most of all for Christmas.
When my turn came, I noticed that "Santa" smelled a lot like that bottle of booze that got broken on its way home with Pop one year. I played along so as not to upset the littler kids, who really thought this was Santa. Once I had a chance, I went over and told Uncle Dick what I noticed about "Santa." About that time, "Santa" started singing German drinking songs, and my older brother Butch was about to join in because he knew the song. (Much to his wife's displeasure.)
Uncle Dick then suggested maybe Santa had better hurry on his way, after all, he had a lot of homes to visit that night. Uncle Dick offered to walk him out to his sleigh. He told all us kids to stay in the house, it was too cold to go out anyway. Uncle Dick left with Santa and was gone quite a while. When he came back, I heard him talking to Aunt Clara in the kitchen. "Yes, I got Hans home all right. Greta was worried that this might happen. At least they live right next door, so he wasn't out driving anywhere."
Aha! I knew that Santa had to be a phony. It was fun, though, to watch the littler kids get so quiet, and so determined to be on their best behavior. For the first year in ages, Kimberly and Joey didn't try to dismantle each other. The only bad effect was that Butch kept starting up that drinking song again. Oh well, Anne had a little talk with him and he was OK after that.
We had our usual wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with the whole family, and after dessert, Uncle Dick read to us "A Visit From Saint Nicholas", and we each got to open one gift. I got a really nice stuffed dog from Uncle Dick and Aunt Clara. I always liked stuffed animals. I held him all the way home. That trip home was pretty normal until we passed Walt's Ranchero pulled over by the side of the road. Seems the headlights had joined the heater in deciding not to work. Well, we just made sure they were following us all the way home, and Pop had his emergency flashers on so people would see us both. There wasn't much traffic at all at that time of night on Christmas Eve, anyway.
Every time I think about that crazy year, I remember how much fun it all was in spite of all the crazy things that happened. Christmas Day was almost a let down after all the excitement that Christmas Eve. Our Christmases were always a lot of fun. Mostly because of my Mom and Pop, and Aunt Clara and Uncle Dick and all the neat things they did for all us kids.
So my dear family, wherever you are, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! I miss you all very much.

Wednesday Wanderings

Today has been a day to indulge my inner child in some ways.  I went to Toys R Us for the first time in donkey's years to buy little presents for the grandnephew and grandniece.  (My sister's grandkids).  Found a stuffed bunny that just begged to follow me home. 
Matt and I went to Barnes & Noble to pick up his copy of Pacific Rim, Man, Machines and Monsters.  While there, I saw a talking plush Dalek toy that I HAD to have for my cubicle at work.  (I know several of the hourly staff who share the cubicle with me will also love it.)  I also acquired a 10th Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver that has a UV light and a UV ink pen, as well as a black ink pen.  Why? Well, because it's cool.  And fun. 

Been talking about cars with friends.  I am a Ford fan, of course, because my brother Walt brainwashed me from an early age.  He went on to become a Ford engineer, and only retired a few years ago.  He knows his stuff.  I love my current Ford, my 2002 Focus wagon.  (Still less than 28,000 original miles on it.)  It looks brand new. 

That's my Focus!  (Matt's Honda Hybrid is next to it.)

The first car I drove was my Mom's old '62 Fairlane that Walt had used as a "parts car" for his Fairlane.  It was driveable, but about worn out by the time I got it.  Got 10 miles to the gallon, and the gas gauge was busted.  You HAD to fill up every 100 miles, or it WOULD run out of gas and strand you.  It had a radiator leak that took forever to find and fix, and therefore I carried a 5 gal. can of water and a pot holder so I could add water if needed.  Also, the oil had to be checked frequently.  I got rear-ended in that car in 1980, and that was the end of it.  I then got a '75 Pinto station wagon with a V-6 engine.  Definitely NOT one of Ford's "better ideas".  That engine was crammed into that car, and with all the smog crap on it, it never did run right.  Finally sold it when we got orders to Germany in 1989.  In Germany, we drove an old Mercedes 123 retired taxi.  It was great, but we had about the last four good years it had in it.  When we got here, we bought a brand new Escort wagon.  Great car.  We ran all over the place in that thing.  Hauled an unbelievable amount of stuff home in it, including a large weightlifting bench AND all the weights!  I continued driving it to work after Matt bought a 2000 Taurus new that year.  In 2002, the Escort went over 100 K miles, and I got a big raise at work, so we traded it in on the Focus.  I have been VERY happy with the Focus.  Matt traded in the Taurus on a Honda Civic hybrid when gas started getting really expensive.  He has the longest drive to work, and the Civic gets over 50 mpg. (I get about 26mpg around town in the Focus wagon.  I only fill up once a month, and it isn't even below a quarter tank then.)  I don't drive a lot.  Just between here and the library, here and the base, and here and my voice lesson.  (Could walk to work if we had showers at work.  Would take about 25 minutes, but I'd get sweaty in warm weather, and muddy in cold weather.)  It takes me maybe 5 minutes to drive to work, if there's no train.

I had a sad duty at work today.  I had to pull the last blue bins of books out of the short sort checkin machine.  (We called it Shorty).  I also shut down its computer, and turned off the power to the whole thing.  Poor Shorty was never meant to live in a cupboard, but we made it live in one.  It gave us trouble once in awhile, and some of us called ourselves the "Handmaidens of the Short Sorter" because it seemed we were the ones always emptying it and restarting the software when necessary.  The reason Shorty had to be shut down is that we now have a new sorter.  It has lots more than 2 bins, and it is in the work area where we can keep a watchful eye on it.  It will never give us a "red light" to tell us it has to be emptied OR ELSE, and we should be able to keep most of the checkins moving on to be sorted on to carts and shelved much more quickly.  I will miss the days of "Code Roxanne on the Short Sort"  being called back to the work area.  (We even had a little graphic of "Roxanne, the Red Light Fairy"  based on the covers of those "whoever the whatever fairy" books the little girls are so enamored of.)  Sigh.  Shorty was the source of many headaches, yes, but we also had fun with it.  I was one of the very first to 'babysit' Shorty and teach people how to check their books in with it.  I was also one who had to restart it a lot.  I will miss it, but mostly I will be glad not to have to haul myself out there and change the bins every 45 minutes, and spend an entire shift doing nothing but checking in and sorting the books from Shorty. (Also will no longer have to worry if the blouse I wore  is too low cut to bend over and push the carts while still maintaining modesty.  Some days it was not possible.  Thankfully, nobody much notices me, they're too busy avoiding being run down by the bins I'm pushing.)

That's been my day, childish pleasures, automotive memories and melancholy over retired technology.  Time marches on here in Moore, OK.

As Ever,
Katie

"My" Kids

My husband is busy hunting the picture of my one and only full-time class of students.  I want to post it with this blog entry.
These are MY kids.  The one and only class of kiddos that was mine for a whole school year.  The rest of my teaching career, I subbed, in order to be better able to support my husband's Air Force career.  These kids were just an ordinary bunch of second graders in that school district in that school year.  They are all very special to me, though.  I remember each and every one of them, and I wonder how they are now that they're all grown up and probably have kids of their own.  The first name that comes back to me is the one I probably had to call out the most. Toby.  Tobias Joseph Gonzales.  Too smart and way too cute for his own good.  Always done with his work early, and unable to resist the temptation to stick his nose in a classmate's business.  We had many battles of will, Toby and I.  He spent more than a few recesses either on the bench, or at his desk with his head down.  He also got to write sentences a lot.  However, I will never forget that impish grin, or the way he stayed behind right before the Christmas break, so he could give me a hug before he left without all the other kids seeing him.  (Was OK for the other teachers to see, just not the other kids, I guess.)
Rafael Cervantes.  Oh, another smart one, and very opinionated, too.  But a helpful young man.  He always helped me translate my bulletin boards so I could have both English and Spanish on each board, and he came back after school almost every day, finished his own homework, and helped me straighten up the classroom a little.  (He put the papers I graded in everyone's mailbox for them, took the trash out to the big can for Regis, our janitor.  Stuff like that.)  Daniel Ineza.  Oh, I wonder what ever happened to that young man who had SUCH a sense of justice.  If I was inconsistent, Daniel called me on it.  I always wondered if he'd go into law.  He was smart enough, just not as quick as Rafael or Toby, but definitely intelligent enough.  He'd have  been very dedicated, too.  He used to come after school and help with some cleanup, too.  He and Rafael always went home to change and to check in with their folks before they came back, and I only let them stay if Mr. Slater was also working in his room, so we wouldn't be out there all alone.  (Our corridor was kinda lonesome, and that neighborhood wasn't always the nicest one in town.)  Daniel and Rafael were the ones who used to make fun of my old Pinto station wagon when it wouldn't start.  They'd dance around the car and sing "Este carconcha no sirve, Teacher!"  in their very finest Spanglish.  Sigh.  We tried to teach them proper grammar in both languages, but, oh, well.
Gilbert Cruz.  Oh, Gilbert. I wanted to fight for him.  Especially after one of the adults in authority very unprofessionally referred to him as "that Cruz kid."  He was a live wire, but he was eight years old, for God's sake.  So he forgot to take his ball cap off in the classroom sometimes.   Well,he wasn't in the Army, so it wasn't THAT important.  He usually remembered soon enough. I was VERY tired by the end of our field trip to the Natural History Museum, though, because I had to have Gilbert by my side the whole time so he wouldn't run off.
I had some darling girls in my class.  Esmeralda Hernandez, who was sweet and always did what she was supposed to do, likewise Teresa, Olivia Sandoval, Olivia Zapata, in fact, all my girls were pretty well behaved.  I had 20 girls in that class, and only about eight boys.  The only girls I had to get after much were Esmeralda Reyes and Yasmin Barrientos.  Esmeralda for getting up and wandering around the classroom, and Yasmin for "not hearing" our bell at lunchtime when she was busy playing tetherball.  I also had a few discussions with Veronica Tapia about tattling.  I had to keep my aide from wanting to clobber Veronica a few times.  (I admit, the kid could get on your nerves, but well, she was just a kid.)  Her mother always dressed her in beautiful little dresses with petticoats and patent leather Mary Janes with lace trimmed ankle socks.  Just like the stuff we used to wear when I was in Second Grade.  The other kids usually wore plainer clothes than that, and a lot of the girls wore pants.  I had a bunch of corduroy skirts that came to mid-calf, with pockets, and I had sweaters or light blouses and blazers to wear with them.  I also had chalk in every pocket of every garment I ever wore in the classroom.
I should also mention Ki'Lee.  She was our "special needs" child.  She had a mild hearing loss, and was a bit socially backward, but the class was VERY protective of her.  Nobody from another class EVER teased her.  In fact, my boys were usually watching to make sure nobody bothered her.  She got to meet Tom Selleck when she participated in Special Olympics.  She had her picture made with him and brought it to class to share.  We were all very proud of her.
It was Toby's job to remind me to pick up my keys before we left the classroom, because I had locked us out twice already that year, and Regis wasn't happy with me.  Since Toby liked being able to get on my case about something for a change, he ALWAYS checked the middle of my desk where I always dropped my keys to make SURE I picked them up before we left the room.
Yard duty was always loads of fun.  I had a bevy of kids, usually mine, who would stick close to me.  I'd tell them to go play, but they wanted to hang out with me.  The ones who did go play always wanted me to hold stuff for them.  Lucky for them I nearly always had pockets.  The principal once commented that she could tell those kids loved me.  Well, I loved them.  I guess they could tell.  A few used to mess up when they were excited about something and call me "Mom".  I loved it.  As long as they were at the school, I was legally responsible for them, so I guess that you could call me a "School Marm."
Earthquake drills were always fun.  We were supposed to all get under our desks or tables.  Well, I'd get under the reading table, but I usually had a bunch of company.  I had to make them see that they'd be safer under their own desks, and that I would be sure to get EVERYBODY out if we ever did have a real earthquake.
One of the funnier things that happened involved our Science textbook.  We were reading a lesson about space one day, and it said "Someday, we will land on the moon."  or something like that.  One of my boys, (Rafael, I'm almost certain.) raised his hand and said, "Um, Teacher, didn't we ALREADY land on the moon?  Like a LONG time ago?"  I said "Yes, we did.  In 1969.  Everybody turn to the very front of you textbook and find the place where it tells you what year the book was published."  Rafael again, "1967, teacher!  Teacher, these books are really OLD!"  "Yes.  I answered.  These are the same textbooks that were brand new the year I was in Second Grade.  Our new textbooks have been ordered, but didn't arrive yet.  Books are VERY expensive, and we have to have them in many subjects, so it has taken a very long time to replace our Science books."  We then talked about how soon after that book was published that we DID land on the moon.  (About two years, maybe a little more.)  We talked about the nature of books and how fast things can happen that can change what needs to be in a book.  This was before computers were commonplace in classrooms, and long before there was such a thing as the Internet.  Our school did have an Apple IIe.  It was in the resource room, and only the sixth graders ever got to use it. 
That was one of the things that made me decide to do part of my grad school coursework on Educational Computing.  I got my Certificate in Educational Computing in 1988.  I never finished the Reading Specialist Credential, we moved to Germany before I could complete that program.  A computer in the classroom would have made so many things easier.  We had ten tons of paperwork because of the federal funding for our bilingual program, and it sure would've been nice not to have to handwrite all those records. 
I hope those kids are out there on the Internet somewhere, and that they remember me fondly.  We had fun most of the time in our class, and according to our goals and test scores, we learned quite a bit, too.  They taught me about how hard it is to love kids and be responsible for them and to them, but also how rewarding it can be.  Wherever you are, my children, know that I still love you, and I pray for you. 

The students pictured are:  Back row, Margaret Quintana (aide), Elizabeth Martinez, Steven Velasco, Jennifer Turner, Norma Rivera, Olivia Zapata, Lorena Crotti, Yasmin Barrientos, Ki'Lee Fuller
Middle Row:  Esmeralda Hernandez, Antonio Villegas, Rafael Cervantes, Blanca Sanchez, Gilbert Cruz, Daniel Ineza, Eugenio Macias, Bertha Sanchez, Teresa Rodriquez
Sitting:  Christi Lane, Veronica Tapia, Olivia Sandoval, Ferny Vargas, Esmeralda Reyes, Toby Gonzales, Georgina Vargas , Sammy Garcia.  Of course, I am standing behind Teresa and right next to Ki'Lee, hiding Gilbert's ball cap behind my back!