Grandma's Attic

This is a story written by my little sister Beth May King and I love her. Glistening icicles peaked off the roof making our back porch look like a gingerbread cookie house. The snow piled high alongside the path my father had shoveled to the shed at the back of our yard. It was a frosty Christmas Eve in 1952, in our small eastern Oregon town, and Dad told me to bundle up warm because he was taking me for a ride. I had finished playing 'flippim' on the carrom board with my two older brothers and was hoping I could prolong the time before Mom told me to get ready for bed. It was hard for a six year old to go to sleep on Christmas Eve because I kept listening for sounds that would give me clues to the mystery of Santa that I still half believed in. My brothers didn't help any, either. They teased constantly and delighted in my confusion. As Dad and I walked out the back door, I reveled in the fact that those brothers had to stay behind.

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As we walked through the back porch, I could smell the warm, pungent scent of the carrot pudding Mom was steaming in Crisco cans in the roaster plugged in by the woodbox. A shiver of excitement danced across my shoulders as we trudged down the path and climbed into the truck Dad used for his shop deliveries. He owned a bike shop and supported all nine of us by selling and repairing all the bikes in the county.

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I thought we were on the way to Gale's Grocery for a last-minute item Mom needed to round out tomorrow's Christmas dinner. But instead, Dad drove on past Main Street's blinking red and green light and pulled into an alley behind a row of houses on the other side of town. He stopped, got out of the truck, and went around to the back. I watched through the frosty back window as he pulled down a new tricycle with multi-colored plastic streamers poking out of the handlegrips. Dad brought it around to my side of the truck and asked me to read the name on a list lying on the seat of the truck while he checked the tag on the trike to make sure it matched. Then I watched with some confusion as he carried it up to the dark back porch, opened the latch and slid it inside. Then he hopped back into the warm truck and we drove on a little farther. He eased into the side driveway of another strange house, and this time pulled a shiny red Schwinn Speedster, with chrome fenders, across the tailgate. We checked the tags again and I helped him quietly steer the bike up the driveway and wheel it through a side door of the garage. Just as the tag said, the door had been left unlocked to receive the special delivery. As we moved back to the truck through the crunchy snow, I was starting to catch on.

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More stops were made, and bikes, trikes and wagons were delivered as Christmas magic was being made without ever a word spoken between my Dad and me. Not once did I question. I just realized we were making memories---memories for the children who would find the

Schwinn 'typhoons' or 'manta rays' with big balloon tires and shiny spokes glimmering under their tree on Christmas morning.

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That 1952 Christmas delivery ended with a tired little girl being carried inside and tucked into bed by her father, not disallusioned, but warm and secure for having been allowed to participate in the magic of Christmas.

Those Christmas Eve deliveries became a tradition for my father and me, and as I reflect on his thoughtfulness in making those last-minute deliveries and in allowing me to help him, I realize that the magic he created on Christmas Eve was only symbolic of all he did the rest of the year.

Dad was quiet, soft-spoken and always a fine example of integrity as he dealt with customers and he trained many young men who worked after school and on Saturdays in the shop. He taught them how to tighten spokes and paint frames as well as how to treat customers fairly and deal with adverse situations. He always had a willing ear to listen to problems concerning the home lives of the boys who worked on an adjacent workbench, and lending quiet advice when he thought it would be well received and was called for.

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He helped prepare missionaries and gave the boys a start on their college educations. Throughout the years he received many letters and remembrances from those whose lives he touched.

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I think the thing that most impresses me when I recall those years of hard work in the shop was the CALM. I don't ever remember Dad discussing a problem concerning lack of money or means to do things for the family. He never ranted and raged about the hardships involved in working all those days and evenings throughout the wintertime of slow business. He just plugged along and did what had to be done. Many of those Christmas deliveries probably weren't even paid for when they were delivered---he didn't want to disapoint anxious young children just because their parents couldn't pay right then.

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As the years blur and the past grows misty with happy recollections, I yearn for the simpler times and wish I could raise my children in the same peace and happiness of 1950s Baker, Oregon. The compensation comes, however, in the form of memories---from which I glean principles and attributes that have become a part of me. As I reflect, I can see examples Mom and Dad used to help me become a better person and I try to use them with my own children. I hope I can give them basic character traits that will help mold their lives so that they will achieve the happiness I have found. The examples are surely there for me to follow.

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And every Christmas Eve I remember, and feel glad.

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