THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 24, 1994 TAG: 9412230104
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
IT WAS KNOWN in our family as the Christmas that little Nordy got the fantoids.
My grandmother owned a large, rambling house in Lumberton, N.C., one big enough to contain her kin who gathered there each Christmas.
She was a rather formidable lady, well-read in the classics, who was not without her eccentricities. (She once exploded the bulb from a corner street lamp with a bullet from her pearl-handled opera pistol, explaining that its light had been ``intrusive.'')
My grandmother was both matriarchal and traditionalist. Bosomy, with a stout figure, she moved about the house like a frigate under full steam. She believed that ladies always carried a lace handkerchief, and she clutched hers in her left hand. The hankie was waved with dramatic effect in giving directions both geographical and philosophical that her children, in-laws and grandchildren were to follow.
It was her strict adherence to tradition that made the Christmas when I was 11, and my brother Norwood 2, so memorable.
The skies were overcast that Christmas Day with the red fluid in the thermometer inching steadily upward, hitting the high 70s by the time we reached Grandmother's house.
``Come into the parlor all of you,'' Granny said, greeting us at the door. Once in the parlor, she told each of us, including my father, mother, uncles and aunts, exactly where to sit - sometimes thinking better of it and moving someone again, like a remote-controlled robot, with a mere wave of her handkerchief.
A large Christmas tree with colored electric lights stood in a corner with presents beneath it for all. I got a pair of skates. Dad got a tie. Mother ear rings. And little Nordy got a snow suit.
``Take it out of the box and put it on him,'' my grandmother instructed. ``Let's see how he looks.''
Little Nordy, then toddling across the carpet, was intercepted, and my mother held him on her lap. As he squirmed and kicked, she somehow managed to stuff him inside the suit with its slash pockets and quilted blue fabric. The suit buttoned up the front to his neck, enveloping him like a blue sausage. Once inside, little Nordy found his mobility restricted and walked less well than before, falling down with every other step. In time, he thought better of it and browsed beneath our chairs on knees and elbows, like a very small blue bear cub.
``Isn't it mighty warm in here, Mrs. Lawrence?'' my father asked.
``Of course not,'' my grandmother replied, leading us all to the dining room for a turkey dinner followed by mincemeat pie.
After dinner, Granny asked my father to bring in wood for a parlor fire.
``You've gotta be joking,'' he said, running a finger inside his damp collar.
But she was not easily crossed. Sweat soaking his shirt back, father placed the wood in the parlor fireplace and lit the kindling.
``Now then, children,'' my grandmother said. ``Gather 'round while I read from Dickens' `Christmas Carol.' ''
Say what you will about my grandmother, she was a person of fixed purpose. She read on and on as the unlit red candles atop the mantelpiece began to melt and drip from the intense heat of the roaring fire.
``The heat in this place would melt the studs off a bulldog's collar,'' my father muttered, blotting his forehead with the tissue wrapping from his Christmas tie. When Granny reached the part where Scrooge said, ``Let's have the shutters up before a man can say Jack Robinson,'' my mother interrupted.
``Couldn't we raise a window?'' she asked.
My grandmother's eyes never left the book. She dismissed mother with a wave of her handkerchief and continued reading. A few minutes later, little Nordy, who had been seated on the floor near the fire holding an orange, keeled over to the carpet with a soft thud. His eyes were rolled back in their sockets, his face as red as a dime store poinsettia. Granny never looked up.
I followed my mother to a bathroom where she frantically removed my brother's snow suit and soaked him in a tub filled with cool water. Father appeared with ice cubes in a tray that he added to the mix. At last my brother opened his eyes. All he said was ``Muffa!''
My uncles and aunts were still in the parlor when we returned, perspiration matting their hair as my grandmother reached the merciful conclusion of her fireside reading.
At the door, Grandmother kissed us all goodbye, my brother last. ``The little angel's cheeks are so cold,'' she said. ``Do you think you should wrap him in the snow suit again?''
My father had a lot to say about Granny, the fire, the snow suit and little Nordy's fainting spell as we rolled down the car windows and sped away. He was still invoking the name of the Almighty in intemperate utterances a half hour later.
``God bless us every one,'' was not among them, my mother later recalled. by CNB