NOV. 1 -- DEC. 20, 1998
Just when there was no more room on this year's "Christmas To Do List," the farmer and Miles came to the rescue. "Leave the decorating to us," they said.
Now I realize that possibly up to 30% of all males are closet Christmas tree decorators. These are real Southern men who decorate trees and/or houses, but they don't advertise the fact. Which is fortunate, for if decorating Christmas trees ever catches on like Monday night football, the price of tinsel will go out the roof.
At out house, however, the only things waiting to come out of the closet are the American flag and a Coleman cook stove.
Thus, when the farmer said he would do the tree, it wasn't because he had suddenly come down with a flair for decorating. But my list was so long and time so short, so I said, "Oh, would you? That would be such a big help."
Whereupon the farmer started stringing lights, round and round, up and down, back and forth, in and out. You would have thought he was weaving a giant tapestry. Miles jumped right in with both feet as well, replacing burned out bulbs and giving advice. Even the dog came in to watch.
The first inkling of trouble came when I heard the farmer say, 'Now, Miles, what we need to do is wad up a few lights to stick in the top of the tree." I don't know about you, but "wad up" is not a verb I have ever used in the process of decorating a Christmas tree.
Then Miles said, "Daddy, do you think Mama is going to like all those plugs in the middle of the tree?" To which the farmer gave his pat answer: "She'll get over it."
When they finished, the cords covered the tree like a giant green spider web. Sure enough, smack dab in the center of the tree, was the big plug-in for the 5 strands of lights.
Their mission accomplished, they retired to the den to catch up on "Walker, Texas Ranger." I turned on the lights, sat by the tree, and tried to read the Christmas Story. But it's hard to read the Bible when you want to go ballistic.
Another year, another tacky Christmas tree. Looking on the positive side, at least the lights aren't going anyplace. That was a week ago, and father and son were right. I did get over it. What I see now in the tree's reflection is my family's willingness to pitch in when mama needed their helping hands. But my Christmas To Do List is still worrisome.
Early in the season, I wanted to play the tape of "The Messiah" but couldn't find the tape. After several days of searching, I made this entry on my Christmas To Do List: "Find the Messiah."
Indeed, isn't that the challenge at Christmas? Thanks to our traditions and prosperity, we are sucked into the eye of the storm called Christmas, when what we really need is to "Find the Messiah." The Good News is that He's not far from a single one of us. His heart is big enough and His vision broad enough to find us all. May you find His presence in the midst of your Christmas celebration.
No sooner does the media finish warning us of the 25 ways NOT to thaw and cook a Thanksgiving turkey than they start in on our Christmas food. In fact, the first sign that Christmas is coming is usually the lead article in the family living section of the newspaper. Big headlines blare forth this bit of holiday cheer: "You better watch out, or you'll gain 14 pounds during the 12 days of Christmas."
Even the Bible doesn't spoil Christmas by weaving in references to weight. The Bible speaks of waiting. But the media zeroes in on weighing.
To encourage us, the media offers tips on how to avoid holiday weight gain. "Just take small servings - then leave something on your plate." This supposedly helpful advice is about as meaningful as UPC codes on cat litter. I don't know about you, but after waiting all year for homemade fudge, divinity, sausage balls and for the upscale, livermush pate, I do not intend to eat a serving the weight of a jumbo paper clip. Ditto for chocolate covered cherries, sugar cookies and peppermint gumdrops.
Another piece of supposedly helpful advice is to eat before you go out. Again, I don't know about you, but this goes against my upbringing. Frankly speaking, my mother used to spank us for eating before a meal. "You'll spoil your appetite, Kathryn Mae," she would say, "and then you won't be able to clean your plate and then the food will go to waste and then you should feel guilty for being wasteful and then your Daddy and I won't have enough money to send you to college, and then…. ad infinitum."
Sometimes the cheery articles on having a "thin Christmas" instruct you to fill up your stomach by drinking lots of water before you go. Take my word for it, if you drink enough water to curb your appetite, you had better know where the gas stations with "clean restrooms" signs are. And dress accordingly.
Of course, any weight prevention article that's worth its weight in salt will also advise you to leap from bed at 5 am, throw up the sash, and dash off to the Y. I don't know a Mrs. Santa in Toyland who can pull that off. If I were to manage to get up early, I really should get a jump on my Christmas cleaning, shopping, decorating, wrapping, greetings, and cooking-especially the homemade mints and fried apple pies.
But why do I let these articles get to me when I have the farmer? The farmer, who has had a life long problem with being underweight, says he can tell me how not to gain weight. Here's his advice on appropriate holiday cuisine. "Kathryn, you know what my mama cooked at Christmas," he said kindly. "All you need to fix are scalloped oysters, ham, turkey, dressing and gravy, creamy corn, grated sweet potato pudding, yeast rolls, pound cake and pecan pies… I'll bet if you would just forget the foreign stuff, like casseroles and congealed salads, you wouldn't gain any weight," he concluded.
One of these days I am going to throw the recipe book at him - the unabridged Fanny Farmer Cookbook.
In the meantime, I'm getting ready for Christmas…..drinking ice water, sucking on 1 candy cane a day, and eating Crest FFA tangelos. I haven't cracked the first English walnut or Brazil nut. Am I nuts?
If I haven't mentioned this in 25 years of writing columns, now would be an appropriate time to work this recognition in. At this holiday season, one of my best blessings is a great husband. I reckon he and I are approaching the stage of life euphemistically referred to as "growing old together." However, growing old together is posing something of a challenge, since the farmer is 57 going on 17.
Years of hard work in the cornfields and cow pastures have leathered his skin and worn out his bones; and experience has given him lots of horse sense. But through it all, my husband has maintained a zest for living that keeps his spirit young.
Indeed, I wish I had his ability to jump out of bed every morning at 5 a.m., impatient to see the sun come up, excited to get the weather report for the day, and raring to drink coffee and discuss the meaning of life and/or the amount of rain in the rain gauge.
If it's true that we are as young as we think we are, the farmer is pushing 18.
Which means that what the farmer is asking for for Christmas is a Willie Nelson CD, a new pair of boots, and a horse. However, what he needs is a hearing aid.
Ms. Santa is clearly in a pickle.
Last Christmas was when we got our first vibes that the farmer wasn't hearing what I said - and that it might not be on purpose. But, like most families, we have gone into denial and stayed there. Last year, as the Christmas season approached, the farmer wanted to do what he could to help out. When he got hungry enough, he took up cooking.
He ran through the fresh turnips and canned goods in short order. When he asked me to put canned carrots on the grocery list, I pretended not to hear. Because I prefer fresh carrots to canned carrots, submission did not come easily.
But when it sunk in that my stubbornness could cost me a cook, I added "canned carrots" to the grocery list.
Thus it was that on December 20, I marched into the house, loaded with grocery bags, and smiling sweetly. As I passed through the den, I looked the farmer straight in the eyes and announced: "Well, Cline, you'll be happy to know that I bought you three (3) cans of cooked carrots for Christmas."
The farmer was speechless. A hush fell over the den.
But as I walked into the kitchen, I heard the farmer turn the television down and ask our sons: "Boys, did your Mama say she was going to fry us Spam meat for Christmas breakfast?"
If I thought it would do any good, I would.
When the company sent out the invitation to a recent meeting in New York City, there was an addendum I'd not seen before. It read, "Of course, significant others are welcome to attend. There will be an array of activities for your significant other to participate in."
Instead of worrying about what to wear, now I had to scare up a 'significant other.' Who could that be? My right-hand woman at the office? The oldest son? The preacher?
I showed the farmer the invitation, and he got right to the heart of the matter. "Well, I've been called lots of names, though this one takes the cake. But I reckon that being the father of your 4 children and your husband of 28 years should qualify me to go."
This day and time, I did what all good corporate employees do: I checked with Compliance to be sure. Compliance checked the rules and regs, and e-mailed that husbands fell within the 'significant other" criteria. On a personal note, they said they would make sure that my significant other got to the opera, the theater, and the health club.
You can bet your cowboy boots that I did not mention the itinerary to the farmer. However, I did remind him that, since most of my counterparts are male, the farmer would likely be the "Lone Ranger of Significant Others." In other words, he would likely be the token male amongst a host of significant others from Miami to Schenectady.
That's the day the farmer caught New York fever. And he ticked off the days on the calendar on the dash of his pickup.
When we flew into the city one evening last week, it was our first visit to New York City in over 30 years. We didn't know enough to be apprehensive. When the taxi driver dropped us off at the corner of Times Square and Broadway, we might as well have been dropped off on Jupiter. The buildings were so tall, the people so different, and the signs so bright. What surprised us most of all was how safe we felt - as safe as you would feel walking through a cotton field in the dead of night.
The next morning, I registered for meetings and the farmer registered for the Significant Other Tours. No sooner did he turn up at the registration desk than I knew everything would be all right. When he drawled out his name, 85 women from above and below the Mason-Dixon Line volunteered to see he got where he was supposed to be. One feisty New Yorker didn't mince words. She told him she was going to take it as a personal challenge to be sure he got a full dose of culture while he was there.
And she did. If you are fixing to go, you can call the farmer for info about the acoustics in the Lincoln Center, the cello schedule, and Les Miserables.
Maybe you CAN take a boy out of the country after all. However, he says not worry - that I will always be his significant other.
What is it about cold weather that makes our taste buds flip flop? Consider how many favorite recipes are forgotten when hot weather moves in. For example, who wants to come home to sweet potato pudding in the middle of July? Or to a crock pot full of pinto beans?
Conversely, in November, who wants find on the supper table, in the pitch dark at 6 PM, a saucepan of boiled squash? Or boiled okra? No, cold weather calls for vegetables with substance.
At our house, with the advent of cooler weather, the farmer has been squirreling away turnips. This is his annual contribution to Grandma's Thanksgiving menu -- even though he and I are the only ones who'll eat turnips.
Indeed, part of the glue that has kept the farmer and me together for 28 years is that we have learned to like the same foods. It did not start out that way.
When we married, I did not eat catfish. Nor had I ever heard of rhubarb, or purple limas, or livermush. The farmer taught me how to grow and process these foods, and eat them anyway.
But I suppose what is most unifying about our marriage is that, after 28 years, we both are crazy about collards. You usually can't find one person per community who eats collards, so two in one household is probably fodder for the Guiness Book of World Records. Good collards, however, are hard to come by.
For the past several years, we have had a supplier from eastern NC - Pender County. I reckon it's the milder climate that gives eastern collards a leg up on local collards. As the days began growing colder, the farmer and I began counting down the days until collard season. Usually collards come in about the same time as the annual meeting of the NC Baptist State Convention.
Just on the eve of the Convention, the farmer got a call from our collards supplier. The supplier cut right to the chase. Tommy said there was very bad news: there were no collards. Period. Mother Nature had not seen fit to send rain, and the collards didn't make it. Our supplier added that, once he got through grieving, he had bought a water meter and irrigation system. He assured us that we would never be caught without collards in the future.
The farmer answered that we had survived many seasons of drought. He reckoned we would surely come up with something else green to eat until next fall.
That sounded good on the phone, but what a dilemma. I boiled a pot of cabbage last weekend, but cabbage is to collards what Canadian bacon is to country ham. Or what pancake syrup is to molasses. Nor are there are any suggestions in the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook on what you can substitute for collards.
No good collards? We're back to square one -- more Chinese takeout.
I had been mentioning to the farmer how much we would enjoy a drive to the mountains to see the leaves change. Weeks passed; nothing happened.
But last Sunday, as I was taking my Sunday siesta, the farmer shook me awake and said: "I thought you said you wanted to go to the mountains to see the leaves change. It's 3:30 pm. With the change in time, if you don't get a move on, we won't make it."
So, at 3:35 on Sunday afternoon, we made coffee, gathered a few loose bananas and 3 cameras, and set off for the Blue Ridge Mountains. We had the road all to ourselves. I reckon the other leaf-watchers were dropping their film off at Walmart by the time we set out.
At least the farmer had a destination in mind. He said he wanted to check out a great dirt road he had heard about near Linville Falls. We have been married 28+ years, so I didn't think he was taking me to Lover's Lane. Then he explained -- that if there was one thing he really needed, it was a new place to ride his horse and buggy. And a friend had told him about a picturesque road across the mountain that would be ideal.
When a man uses the word "picturesque," you should worry. The leaves and the sun were already fading when we found the "picturesque" dirt road. It was headed straight up and through the Linville Wilderness Gorge area. The National Park Service had put up a big sign: "EXTREMELY ROUGH TERRAIN NEXT 15 MILES. 4-WHEEL DRIVE VEHICLES STRONGLY RECOMMENDED."
Unfortunately, we were in the family car, a freshly washed Toyota Avalon. The farmer took one look at the sign, put the Toyota in low gear, and started up the mountain. We passed several other family cars, stuck on rocks and ruts, but passed by on the other side. Just as the moon was coming up over the mountains, we came to the first scenic pull-off, Wisemen's View. And, indeed, this awesome view of the Linville Gorge brought back memories of the Grand Canyon.
When we left this pull-off, the farmer said he wanted to keep going across the mountain. I hesitated. "Don't you want to know where this dirt road comes out? he asked. "It's only 10 more miles, and they say we'll come out near Morganton. After that, we can go to Burger King."
So for the next hour and a half, we drove the Avalon along the ridge of the mountains with only a full moon to guide us. The road was rutted, washboarded, and isolated. The car phone was dead, having no reception. And we had eaten our bananas. The farmer said we would be fine, that the road surely would come out somewhere. He said that no one was going to bother us, but if we came upon a bear, we would just have to deal with it.
At heart, I am a mountain girl -- born and raised in the mountains. But I tell you, by the time we touched down on pavement, I had lost my appetite for a Whopper. To his credit, the farmer concluded that this road was no place to take a horse and buggy.
If I go back, it will be in a tank - at high noon.
Though the farmer and I are not yet in the twilight years, there are signs that we are headed in that direction. The children have picked up on this. Sometimes they enjoy poking gentle fun at what we are becoming as middle-aged+ parents.
Have they have forgotten those years when we were young enough to climb up on the roof after them? And have they forgotten that decade when we could run circles around them, trying to catch them? Don't they remember that there once was a time we could outdo them at jumping rope, stacking firewood, and threading needles?
The early years of being a parent are as physically demanding as participating in a triathlon. Young parents have to be able to swim the Broad River, run down soccer fields, and lift refrigerators, possibly automobiles. In fact, a good training program for prospective parents would be to run the Boston Marathon - once for each child you hope to have.
It's very fortunate that we managed to have our children while we were young enough to see, if not into the future, at least clear around the house. We also were blessed with good ears and could hear what plots the boys were hatching half a mile away. We could remember where we kept the Bandaids; we could smell a fire before the smoke detector; and we could react quickly without slipping a disc. Those were physically demanding years.
Looking back on it, it's a good thing the farmer and I didn't have gray hair back then. We wouldn't have been able to slow down long enough to color it.
We thought those early years of parenting would never end. We could not envision the day when our sons would be able to sit still for 5 full minutes (300 seconds). Nor could we imagine they would ever willingly trade in their bikes, trikes, and Big Wheels for such a passive mode of transportation as the family car. And I certainly never foresaw a time when those fat, grubby fingers would have to thread my sewing needles.
But while we were tracking our children's growth by marking their height on the kitchen doorframe, not so subtle changes were taking place in the parents. Our youngest sons are still growing and want us to measure their height, but we can't remember where we put the yardstick. Sometimes we can't remember if we even have a yardstick. Nor can we see to make the mark without getting our glasses (after remembering where we left our glasses.) Once we make the measurement, we now have to get out the calculator to convert the inches into feet. And no one writes anything down in the last child's baby book.
The children scratch their heads at parents that want the TV loud but the recliner soft. While they are not looking, however, the years will do what we sometimes had trouble doing: catch up with them.