Best Christmas Tree Ever

The Best Christmas Tree ?

I'll never forget the year that my Dad got our best Christmas tree ever!

It was Christmas Eve and  we had not gotten a tree that year. I think it was mostly because none of us cared that much and with only one car in the family and one driver at this point, it wasn't the easiest thing to do.
My Dad came home from work after supper time which was unusual as he always worked the night shift and usually came home well after midnight. I guess he got off early because it was Christmas Eve.  He was usually in a good mood and this night was no exception.
My dad did have a twisted sense of humor. When asked one day if got a promotion from his normal janitorial duties, he replied yes, as that day he was asked to clean 8 toilets instead of the usual 4!
I think my brothers and I complained about the lack of a tree to the point where he finally caved in and said okay, let's take a ride to Two Guys, the discount department store, who had a tree lot in their parking area.
Back then, Christmas tree lots were not as numerous as they seem to be today, as we drove about 25 minutes to get to the Two Guys store.

It was late by this time, and although my memory is foggy on the exact time, it had to be like 8:30 or so. We were the only buyers in the lot.There were still a lot of trees left and we started to look around for what would be our tree that year. The most expensive tree back then went for about $12.
Shockingly, my very frugal dad picked out a 10 foot tree marked at $12.00. How frugal was he? Well not to gross you out, but he made soap from partially used bars of soap from the boys locker room at our high school, where he worked for a time.

So my dad brings the tree to the  guy who was running the lot and says basically that we expect a deal on the tree as it's late on Christmas Eve and your prospects of selling even one more tree are bleak. The guy's first offer, whatever it was, was unrealistically high given the circumstances. My father, in  textbook negotiation fashion, offered the guy his first and final offer...one dollar!
The lot owner made the "fritz" face, and said how that was not a bona fide offer and said he would not part with the magnificent tree for such a paltry sum.
Then my Dad uttered the words which I can still recall as plainly today as when they were first spoken over forty plus  years ago:
"Look, it's late..you are closing in 15 minutes or so, so you can go home and be with your family. My sons and I will come back in half an hour and take the tree then, for free."

Faced with my Dad's most logical argument, the lot owner took the dollar
from my Dad's hand and gave us the tree. I cannot recall any bitterness from the lot owner.
But, I can recall the look on my Mom's face when we walked in with the best and biggest tree we ever had!

(Reposted from 12-18-11)

The Toy Train Affair

In second grade, I packed up my newly acquired windup toy train set, put it in one of those shopping bags with handles on it, and trudged thru the snow to proudly demonstrate it to my fellow classmates. My most admired show and tell item of that era was a fishing tackle box, that I packed with neat lures and stuff my dad had. But for this week's show and tell, the train set was the featured attraction.

I'm pretty sure it met it's demise when I over wound it one too many times. I cannot recall how I came to obtain said train set, as gifts of any kind were quite infrequent in my young life, as my parents were pretty poor at this point.
But, I digress. When school was over, I packed up the train set and started to walk home with Bobby, my best friend. That was my first mistake of the afternoon.  Let's just say that he got into trouble a lot and I was there to participate in a lot of it. This was one of those times.
We were no more than a couple of houses away from the school, when for whatever reason, Bobby started making snowballs and began to throw them at a house along our route home. I don't mean just one or two, but a lot of snowballs. I'm sure I joined in, hurling snowballs at this guy's house, including his picture window. 
Our usual snowball targets, especially in later years were the trucks and buses that passed by at a busy intersection near our houses. While we had a few close calls being chased by our victims there, today would be a different story.

All of a sudden this guy comes tearing out of the house, screaming and yelling at me and Bobby! We both took off, but I had the shopping bag full of  my train set to carry with me as we fled, terrified. Weighted down, I was not as fleet  as Bobby was that day and the guy caught me and brought me into his house.
Looking back, I realize that in today's world, no one would ever bring a 7 or 8 year old kid into their house, but these were different times. He harshly sat me down in a chair right next to the front door and he walked away for purposes I was unsure of at that point. I sat in that chair, and with the homeowner not watching me, contemplated bursting out of the door to freedom.  I considered my chances of being recaptured and before I could muster up the courage to flee, the homeowner returned to the front door area as simultaneously, a police officer pulled up to the house.

The guy had called the cops on me! I don't remember any of the two minute ride to my house. The officer rang our doorbell and my mom came out and I guess the officer gave my mom the details of what happened.

I'm sure I was sobbing by this point. The officer left and I told my mom the details of what had happened that winter afternoon, just down the street. Once she heard Bobby was involved, I think I was off the hook for the most part as like I said, he was in trouble constantly. She called Bobby's mom and told her what happened.I'm pretty sure I didn't get punished for my actions that day.
Unless, you take into consideration that I had to walk past that guy's house countless more times over the years, always a little fearful that he might come out once again, yelling and screaming at me.

My dad- the assassin?

As regular readers of this blog are aware, my dad spent his formative years living in Ukraine after emigrating from the United States when he was a small boy, due to his mother's health condition.
My dad was what you would either call a real Ukrainian patriot, or a terrorist, depending upon your viewpoint.

When he lived in Ukraine, it was ruled by Poland as it had been by then, for centuries. A Polish "overseer" was assigned to his small village. My dad rebelled against all things Polish, mostly in ways that were symbolic or relatively safe. He was unafraid to assert his patriotic fervor for Ukraine and everyone in the village new that this young man was a zealot. When something happened in the village that was a slight against the Polish authorities, everyone assumed my dad was behind it. Usually, he was.

My dad unfortunately decided to take things to a whole new level when he was about 17. He hated the Polish overseer assigned to his village and my dad and a friend of his hatched an assassination plot! Their target routinely walked down the same path every evening, by himself. The plan was simple. My dad and his friend would lie in ambush , hiding along the path, with a handgun. When their target passed by, they would jump out and shoot him dead.

I can only imagine the adrenaline pumping through my dad's body as he and his co-conspirator laid in wait for their target to approach. They waited patiently until darkness fell and they realized that on this night, their intended target was not going to follow his usual routine.

By the next morning, my dad explained to me that his "fever" to commit this terrible act had somehow dissipated, never to return again. He must have realized that he would be the number one suspect if he had been successful and that he would certainly would have paid for this act with his life.

If he had been successful that fateful day, you would not be reading this story.

What Is Wrong With People?

The other day I was backing out my car in the parking lot of my favorite bagel joint.

I must say that I backed out rather fast and obviously without looking too carefully, as I heard the sickening thud of hitting another car that was parked in the lot. Totally my fault.

I put the car in park and jumped out and a woman a little older than myself who owned the car, got out of her car. She was already in what I would call a "crazed state".

I inspected both cars for damage and found a paint scratch on the bumper on her car and no damage to mine. But if you would have heard this lady rant and rave, you would have thought I just killed her whole family! Here's a partial list of her one liners...the first one was repeated several times.

"What were you thinking? "

"I said, this guy's gonna hit my car! "

"This is our retirement car! "

"Why did you do it? "
"If you think I'm mad, wait till I call my husband and tell him" (a line that made me shudder)
"What are we gonna do?"
I told her that I was a moron (seriously)and made a mistake by misjudging the distance between our cars. Nothing I said could calm her down. At about this point a passerby said to us: "Is everything okay? Should I call the police?'  No, I thought, you should call a doctor and get her a Valium.

I told her we could exchange insurance info if she wanted, but I said there's almost no damage to your car. She then just asked me for my phone number and commented on how I could just give her a phony name and number. To that rant, I showed her my license and said if I'm lying to you, call then police on me and have me arrested.

She made me feel like a low life criminal who had just stolen money from a blind person.

After what seemed like an hour, but was probably 15 minutes, we both drove off. Her husband did call me and said he had tried to buff out the scratch but to no avail. He said he would get it repaired and send me the bill. I then said let's just report this to our insurance companies and we exchanged information. I told him I was sorry his wife had gotten so upset over the accident. He had no comment. Imagine what his days are like.

No Fool Like An Old Fool

I recently was able to visit a place that I have read and studied about extensively for the last almost 40 years....Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas. For those reading this who are saying what is Dealey Plaza, it's where President Kennedy was assassinated n 1963. I have been fascinated with the whole assassination  thing ever since the day it happened. Like so many other big events in my life it's a day that is etched in my memory.
So I can't tell you how excited I was when I heard we were having a work meeting in Dallas and that 2 of my co-workers were interested in taking a tour of the Dealey Plaza area, perhaps even going into the Texas School Book Depository building, from where JFK was shot.

The excitement was really building as my coworkers and  I parked the car in a lot adjacent to the area and began walking towards The Texas School Book Depository and Dealey Plaza. As we were crossing the street against the red light, a pedestrian who was walking in our direction said we better be careful against walking against red lights in Dallas, as the police were known to issue tickets against lawbreakers like ourselves. We thanked him and he continued the conversation asking us if we were from out of town and if we were here to see the assassination site. We enthusiastically said yes.
He said his name was Sherman and he was on his lunch break from his job as a repairman for The Texas School Book Depository! He said he would be hapy to give us a quick tour ...on his lunch break. He had previously given official tours for the museum, but was let go, as the museum did not appreciate him giving the unofficial version of events to the tourists.
Let me tell you, Sherman knew his stuff...in more ways than one. He knew about every conspiracy theory there was and he kept us spellbound with his vast knowledge and obvious obsession with the JFK assassination, taking us to the book depository building, showing us the motorcade route and all the other fascinating sights we all knew so well.

Before you knew it, THE  grassy knoll was upon us...I mean the one and only grassy knoll that has become a word in and of itself. Although  world changing history happened here, the actual grassy knoll is a small little area.
It had almost been an hour since Sherman started his unofficial tour with us and he asked if we wanted a picture taken of us with the assassination scene as a backdrop.
It all then suddenly  hit me...what did I know about this guy Sherman? I just met him less than an hour ago . What if he ran off with my Blackberry? And come to think of it, wasn't all of what happened in the last hour just a tad bit convenient?  He really worked in the book depository building? He really was on his lunch break and just kindly warned us about going against the red light? Did I just fall off the turnip truck?
I still gave him my Blackberry as I knew my 2  co-workers were a lot younger then Sherman and could catch him easily if he decided to run away with it.He snapped our picture and handed me back my Blackberry.
Right after Sherman snapped the pictures, his  real motivation for just running into us became apparent.
"Well guys", he said," it's been about an hour and the official tour you would have taken would have cost you $15- $20 each. A donation in that amount would be most appreciated"  One of my co-workers handed him a twenty and with that our friendly tour guide abruptly turned around and walked off in a huff. Within 5 minutes, he spotted another bunch of rubes like ourselves and latched onto them.
The three of us felt dumb for being so easily taken in by Sherman who misrepresented himself and his real motivation. He was an excellent confidence man and we fell for his story hook, line and sinker. Here were three city boys who should have been more suspicious and a lot less gullible. But the more we thought of it, we realized he had given us a great tour and that actually,it was well worth the  $20 we gave him!

Guess What's For Dinner?

My Mom was one of the best cooks of all time. She could do it all...different cuisines, breads, sweets..everything from A-Z. On one particular evening, the family was sitting down to dinner and my Mom had prepared a great meal, as she always did. When I asked what we were having that night, she was somewhat evasive, using a line I hadn't heard up until then: "it's like chicken".
Indeed, whatever we were having did indeed taste like chicken. But for some reason, my older brother was snickering and smiling strangely throughout the meal. "yeah, it's like chicken". I didn't put much more thought into his behavior as acting odd was not unusual for him.
When the meal was over, my Dad announced somewhat unceremoniously, that what we had eaten, was in fact not chicken, but in fact rabbit. Not any old rabbit, but what I considered to be my pet rabbit.

I did not believe him and raced out of the kitchen to the backyard,  to look at the rabbit's cage to prove to myself that my Dad was lying.
He wasn't. The cage was empty. I had just had my pet rabbit for dinner. He did taste like chicken.

The Pee Jar

Growing up, I had 2 brothers and a sister at home. Add my parents in, and we are talking a total of 6 people sharing one bathroom for a long time, until eventually we finally put a toilet in the basement.
To top that off, I'm speaking for myself, but I have a very weak bladder. To this day, the first thing I do when I'm in any new environment is to check  where the bathroom is.
So when we had 1 bathroom, what did we do as a work around? Well of course all the men used the bushes outside, especially when we had just come home, and before we went in the house. Some would "call firsts" on the bathroom when we came back home from a trip. This had limited success. You could also beg others to hurry up in there, before you busted a kidney.

But when none of those options were available, and nature was calling, we had a special jar under the sink in the kitchen. It was actually a metallic drinking glass.

I'm pretty sure it was purple in color. Everyone in our family knew where it was and what it was for. Suffice to say, it got a lot of use.

One summer day, my parents had one of their weird friends over, and as soon as Mrs. P came into the house, which from the back door, led you straight to the kitchen, she said she was very thirsty. Without warning, she opened the cabinet doors under the sink

and grabbed the pee jar! She filled it up with water from the sink and guzzled the contents down. It all happened so fast, that none of us reacted or said a word. We just watched as she quenched her thirst from the pee jar. While the next part is legend, after she was finished, she supposedly remarked that it was an especially great glass of water!
In some ways, it was.