ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 25, 1995 TAG: 9512270035
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-15 EDITION: HOLIDAY
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
WHAT PLEASURE we had in receiving 80 wonderful memories of Christmas past in our Great Fruit Cake Contest. All deserved to win one of our cakes, but space (and cakes), alas, limited us to these.
Uncle Sam took care of us.
My most memorable Christmas was exactly 50 years ago. That Dec. 25 found me and thousands of other GIs on the USS Monticello, enroute from Marseilles, France, to New York, N.Y. The war was over; we were coming home!
What with one problem and another, we were more than 40 days at sea. But Capt. Roderick S. Patch of the U.S. Coast Guard saw to it that the troops had a fine Christmas dinner. I don't know what made me save it. But the ship's menu from that day made it home to Lynchburg. Years later, my wife framed it for me.
No fruit cake was served that day, but you may be interested in what they did fix for us:
Turkey Gumbo Soup
Baked Virginia Ham
Maryland Roast Turkey
Sage Dressing
Sweet Potatoes
Buttered Corn
Giblet Gravy
Cranberry Sauce
Mince Pie
Asst. Nuts & Candy
Fresh chilled fruits
What a life - what a country!
- Raleigh E. Worsham, Bedford
A cake against all odds.
My husband and I had just been discharged after World War II when he got a job in Tangier, North Africa.
We had a cold-water flat - no stove, no fridge, no nothing. But I wanted to bake a cake - a proper Christmas cake. First step, acquire a cookbook. Found a Fanny Farmer, circa 1923, at the flea market, cost 10 cents.
Next step, acquire the ingredients - not easy when you don't speak the language. So, armed with "20 Easy Lessons in Spanish," I sallied forth. Getting fresh eggs was the first problem - about half weren't. But with a pan borrowed from a friendly American I got it made. Now, how to bake a cake when you have no oven?
Solution: a "carry" boy to take your cake, balanced on his head in a copper tray, to the public bake oven. I still have a photo of Ali and his smiling face, bearing my precious cake home.
- Theresa Plummer, Catharpin
How the angel broke her wing.
As in most families, the old Christmas ornaments tell many a story. We have a well-worn angel with a torn dress and a broken wing that has perched atop our tree for many years. Each time she is unpacked we are reminded of how she got that way.
One Christmas in the late '40s, my father brought home a pet raccoon. It was quite tame, a friendly little cuss, and we all enjoyed playing with it. But we also had a dog named "Whiskers." I'll bet you can guess the rest of the story.
Whiskers went for the raccoon and the raccoon went up the Christmas tree. Ornaments flew in every direction, the tree came down and the angel did as all angels do, she flew! That's how our angel came to have a broken wing. But Christmas at our house wouldn't be the same without her.
- Jack Rankin, Round Hill
Christmas all year 'round.
Last year was my special Christmas because I got my Playmobil set from Santa and I had wanted that set for such a long time. I like our Christmas music so much that I play it all year, and I really have fun with the Christmas music.
- Jackie Walker (age 6), Bedford
A Japanese Christmas.
I remember Christmas 1945 and the ship's party we had at the Yokosuka Enlisted Men's Club - lots of beer, laughter and food. It was great, we'd won a war and survived. It was good to be alive, to be young and to have a future.
Then I thought of people who had little to celebrate that Christmas: the Japanese. I thought of the plight of homeless people living in rubble - of little children I'd seen living in a culvert, cold, hungry.
An idea occurred to me: We're going to spread a little of that cheer around! I had no trouble recruiting a couple of helpers. And then we did it - stole a United States Navy turkey. I mean we stole the whole thing - a huge, juicy, still hot, roasted bird, roasting pan and all.
Running into the darkened street, I called to several Japanese I saw. I can only wonder what they thought, but one thing sure, they weren't going to stop. Finally, I saw a young fellow who did stop. It took some time to make him understand I wanted to make him a present of that huge bird, roasting pan and all.
I don't believe he knew a word of English. But he learned one that night. Offering him the turkey I said, "Christmas," and we each repeated it several times before the look of bewilderment began to leave his face.
- Norman Robarr, South Boston
Santa's changing station.
Christmas at our house meant Daddy donning his Santa suit. One year, our eldest, then 4, discovered the red suit. Invention being the necessity of mothers, my imagination had to kick into overdrive.
How does one explain a Santa suit hanging in the closet? But in an instant a family tradition was born.
"You see," I said, "Santa passes through a lot of chimneys . He gets covered with ashes and soot. Because he always wants to look his best, he leaves spare suits in the homes of special elves."
Warming to the story, I explained that once Santa leaves off a dirty suit he expects it to be cleaned in time for next Christmas. My daughter walked with me to the dry cleaners with pride, and very special friends who were sworn to secrecy were invited to peek into the closet to admire the old gent's red suit.
- Karen Collins, Purcellville.
The enduring fruit cake.
When World War II started, I was in nurses' training in Richmond. After graduating I joined the Navy and was assigned to the Naval Hospital in Bethesda. My work with special diets threw me into association with an old chief who was in charge of baking all the holiday fruit cakes for patients and staff.
After baking, each cake was wrapped in a white cloth which had been soaked in Cognac. I was the lucky recipient of several of these cakes, and the following year, when I received orders to a hospital ship, I still had one, which I took with me.
With all the new experiences and long hours on duty, I forgot all about the cake. The next Christmas found our ship in the South Pacific. Rummaging through my cabin desk, my roommate found the cake. Could it be any good? You bet. It was greatly savored by all who got a taste, especially since we were so far from home and not feeling very Christmasy in the sultry heat.
- Sue Capriotti, Tahuya, WA
Hearing Santa's sleigh bells.
The attic in our old house was filled with treasures from several generations. It was a wondrous place to play on rainy days. Toward the back were several dome-lidded trunks with a heavy Buffalo hide tossed on top. These, we were told, were strictly off-limits for children. Hanging nearby from the rafters were two pieces of harness with sleigh bells attached.
My sister and I shared a room under that area of the attic. For years we believed we could hear Santa coming by the tinkling of his sleigh bells. Later we realized, of course, that our parents had been accidentally jiggling those bells when retrieving our gifts from those forbidden trunks.
- Mary Ann Phillippi, Salem
Smelling Christmas.
My Christmas memory is not my own but one related to me by my mother. She, along with seven brothers and sisters, grew up in the coaifields around Pikeville, Ky. For Christmas, each received the same gift: a brown paper bag containing nuts, fruit and candy.
My grandfather would start buying the treats a few weeks before Christmas, storing them in a large wooden toolbox that had a lock on it. When I was a little boy visiting my grandparents, my mother showed me the box and told me its story.
She pointed to a small knothole in the side and said that in the days before Christmas she and the other children would sneak a sniff at the knot hole. As the great day came closer, she told me, the aroma got stronger - as did their expectations.
- Delmar Herington, Bristol, TN
Keeping German traditions.
Christmas Eve, 1941, I was 6 and my brother Herman 13. Excitement was mounting because we knew that come evening the Christ Child would be coming to bring gifts, just as the wise men had brought gifts to Him. My parents were from Germany, so in our house Kris Kringle came a few days before Christmas to bring fruits and nuts and candy to all the good children, and lumps of coal to all the bad children. But on Christmas Eve, it was the Christ Child who came.
Right after lunch, Dad placed a sheet over the French doors leading to our sun porch. For the next several hours we heard all sorts of noises coming from the other side of the door.
At supper time, Dad came in, quickly closing the door. Mother had baked all sorts of cookies - Spritzgebackenes, Mandelkranze, Lebkuchen and Butterbretzelchen. And, of course, a Christmas Stollen. I still have the German cookbook she brought with her from Germany. Afterward, we sang carols, always ending with Stille Nacht (Silent Night). That was the signal for Dad to go out on the sun porch.
We could hear him thanking the Christ Child for all the presents. Then, he said goodbye and opened the door. There was a beautiful Christmas tree surrounded by tiny, lighted houses and a train running past them into a tunnel under a plaster-of-paris mountain.
Under the tree was the most beautiful doll and a toy Singer sewing machine that really sewed, which I still have. And for Herman, a big Erector set. So long ago, so wonderful to recall.
- Ruth Shott, Roanoke
Thrilling the troops.
On Christmas Eve 1942, I was a nurse aboard USS Lyons - part of a large convoy bound for Morocco to join the Fifth Army that had invaded North Africa the month before. With portholes blacked out, and all exits to the deck covered with heavy blankets, hoping to avoid any lurking enemy submarines, we passed through the Strait of Gibraltar.
Next day, a traditional Christmas dinner was served. The nurses had been isolated from the ship's company. But the captain ordered us to appear in " Class A" uniform . Every man aboard was trying to get a good look at women in skirts. Shortly thereafter, we landed, but that's another story.
All across the Atlantic one had the feeling that a power above the U.S. warships had been the convoy's escort.
- Mary K. Greer (age 92), Salem
A simple Christmas.
Let's, for a moment, drift back more than 60 years to my two-room school. Several days before Christmas, the teacher sent a few of the older boys to search the surrounding hillside for a cedar Christmas tree. Usually, it was far too big and had to be cut down to size.
Bringing popcorn from home our mothers and grandmothers had popped for us, we threaded the white puffs with a needle to make long ropes, then wound the beauty around the tree.
Various ornaments, resembling angels, stars and bells, would be cut from cardboard, wrapped in tin foil and hung on the branches. A touch of mistletoe finished the project.
We drew names from a basket, which obligated you to give that person a gift. The girls usually got a comb, a small mirror or maybe a bottle of 10-cent perfume. The boys might get a small jazz horn or a bag of marbles. We could hardly wait to get home to show our parents what we received.
Today we spend hundreds of dollars. We sit down in exhaustion, wondering where we've been and how we're going to pay the debt. Please come back, Christmas of long ago, and let us be happy.
- Edwin Robertson, Pearisburg
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist. His column also appears in 22 other newspapers in Virginia.
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