THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 25, 1994 TAG: 9412220159
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastwise
SOURCE: Ford Reid
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
For most of the year, I listen to Bob Dylan and Beethoven, Johnny Cash and Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris and Guy Clark. Maybe a little Rolling Stones or Neil Young.
But today I will be listening to Andy Williams, Julie Andrews, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and, of course, Bing Crosby.
It doesn't pay to be hip on Christmas Day.
There are some things that are tough to get out of your blood. They are so ingrained that they can not be easily shed.
Back in the 1960s, I finally admitted that my beloved University of Kentucky basketball team might be infected with racism. I mean, it was hard to ignore.
Mississippi, Alabama and LSU all had black basketball players before Kentucky.
I tried mightily not to care about the fortunes of the Wildcats. Publicly, I declared that they deserved to lose.
But I grew up with Kentucky basketball ringing in my ears. Some of my first memories are of sitting on the kitchen floor while my father listened to games on the radio.
To this day, I can at will call up the voice of the late Claude Sullivan crying ``The Cats are on the run!'' and it brings a chill to my spine.
Even at the height of my personal protest, the sound of the Kentucky fight song or the sight of those white and blue uniforms caused my heart to overrule my head.
I used to have the same problem with old fashioned Christmas music.
I knew that I shouldn't like this stuff. I mean, Andy Williams? Bing Crosby? Give me a break! I was way too hip for any of that nonsense.
But when I heard ``White Christmas'' or ``Silent Night,'' in a department store, say, or on an elevator, my insides turned to mush and I got a weird, far away look in my eyes.
Mostly I heard them at my mother's house. During the rest of the year, she didn't play music.
But come December she dragged out the tiny record player and the stack of Texaco Christmas Albums and played carols nonstop for about 18 hours a day.
It was like that for as long as I can remember and those songs are embedded in me.
You could wake me from a deep sleep and I could recite without error the words to ``Away in the Manger'' or ``Here Comes Santa Claus,'' whether I wanted to or not.
Finally, I have come to terms with my affliction. Christmas, I now realize, is a time of traditions and it is those traditions that make it important.
Without Christmases past, the present one has little meaning. It is all of those stored up memories that make Christmas so wonderful.
Besides, if you can't be corny at Christmas, when can you be corny?
So for now, John Prine, Merle Haggard and the Ramones will have to wait. I'm going to get my annual Bing Crosby fix. by CNB