RRN Online Volume 548

December 02 '06

Volume 548

Christmas Memory Little Red Santa

Not Ralph's Santa A line spoken by Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase)from the movie Christmas Vacation states, "’Tis the season to be merry." My son-in-law maintains all human thought can be reduced to the scripts of Christmas Vacation and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I don’t think he’s really serious, but in our family, dialogue from Christmas Vacation finds its way into our conversations throughout the year. Thus, it’s only natural for me to associate thoughts of Christmas with lines from a Christmas movie.

For me, reasons to be merry during Christmas are numerous, not the least of which is the ability to become nostalgic concerning Christmases past. An appeal for Christmas memories usually appears in an issue of RRN during November, and this year, I did make such a request through email to the sixty plus subscribers who receive this publication via Al Gore’s discovery (laugh), the Internet. Anyone wishing to contribute a Christmas memory should do so right away, as there are only three more issues of RRN prior to Christmas.

Now, throw another log on the fire, drop a few marshmallows into a cup of hot chocolate, have a seat in your favorite easy chair, and enjoy the following remembrance. See if it doesn’t make you a bit merrier.

The Little Red Santa Claus

by Ralph Jones 2006

Christmas time was always a very special time for our little family. Having been raised as an only child, there were just the three of us, but the excitement and anticipation of the season was there just the same.

When the "Christmas Feeling" began for everyone else in Pontotoc is hard to say, but for me it started on, or about, Thanksgiving Day. However, it was "really" almost Christmas when the Commercial Appeal started running the little square down in the lower right hand corner, where "Hambone’s Meditation" was ordinarily located.

It declared, "Only 24 More Shopping Days until Christmas."

There was usually a picture of Santa Claus, his reindeer, a candy cane, or some other holiday type picture. The paper probably started it on December 1, but to us kids December with any number following it meant Christmas is near! Mrs. Hazel Furr threw our paper and I could hardly wait to get it inside and see how many days that were left until the big day. Not that I could not remember how many days that it said yesterday, but somehow hoping that it would be even closer to Christmas than I remembered.

Mom would make arrangements with someone who had uncultivated land beforehand to cut us a Christmas tree off their place. When the magical day came we would get our coats and gloves on and she would send me to Dad’s tool chest to get the hand ax. Now you just don't see a happier kid than that very often. We walked to the field and after surveying all the trees, she would give me the privilege of "cutting it down." Well, she at least gave me the privilege of chopping on it for a while. The tree was usually a little scrub cedar. Lugging it home was such a pleasant chore.

Making it stand upright was yet a different kind of chore. You did not drive up to Wal-Mart and get a stand for two reasons, Mom did not drive, and there were no Wal-Marts. We had to make our own.

Sometimes it took several tries to get one [made] that would hold the tree up straight and sturdy. Sometimes we had to wait for Dad to come home; he was good at that sort of thing. We tried to use two boards nailed together in a "plus" pattern, we tried burying the stump in a large bucket of sand, and we nailed a lid from a large bucket on the bottom of the tree stump. Most of these methods only worked if you did not wiggle the tree too much. Eventually we made it stand upright.

Remembering all this makes it difficult to write. It still humbles me to think of all the trouble Mom went to, just to make a good setting for a little lad at Christmas time.

Now that the tree stood, Mom would go to the family trunk and start pulling out boxes and packages wrapped in old newspaper. Ornaments that were so carefully packaged would once again see the light of day, as we hung them so very carefully on the tree. If one dropped it crashed into a million pieces on the floor. There was celluloid roping saved from years past, trinkets made by yours truly at school and church that had to be hung as well.

Often when Dad would get home from work we would pop some popcorn and eat some and string some of it for the tree. What a joyous time. Then after all was in its place Mom would bring out a long roll of newspaper that contained the icicles, as we called them. The very same ones we used last year and the year before and the year before that. Very carefully we took them one by one and hung them over a branch, being careful not to get too many in one spot.

When the tree came down, those same icicles would be removed one at a time and re-rolled in newspaper for next year. There is no recollection of having lights on the tree until I was about ten or twelve years old. But, with, or without, lights it was so beautiful, and always smelled so good.

There was one more item that finished out our tree’s decoration. All my growing up years it was always there. When I was born one of the ladies in the Randolph community, where Mom and Dad lived at the time, made a little stuffed Santa Claus as a gift to my folks.

It was about twelve inches tall and had a bright red suite with white cotton fringes. It even had a red cap and a white cotton tassel on the end. The face had a fluffy cotton beard and the eyes, nose, and mouth were drawn onto the fabric with crayon. It was such a precious gift to my Mom and became a treasure to all of us over the years. Mom and Dad were friends of the lady, but alas, I have forgotten her name.

Each year however, there under the tree sat that little Santa smiling up at each of us. It graced our trees for well over twenty years. Coming home from college at Christmas time, I’d look for the little Santa under the tree. Mom was faithful to put it there.

Since so much time has elapsed, and Mom and Dad have passed on to their reward, the little Santa has been misplaced. One day while going through an old trunk or box of remembrances, he may once again appear. He may be misplaced, but he’s not forgotten.

I know that Jesus is the reason for Christmas. My children were taught that as was I, but I still find myself looking under the tree to see if perchance that little ol’ rag Santa has miraculous reappeared.

Biographical Note: Ralph Jones is the son of the late Anderson (R.A.) and the late Lillian Phillips Jones. Born in Randolph, MS, Ralph later moved to Pontotoc and graduated from Pontotoc High School in 1955. He and his parents were members of the First Baptist Church, Pontotoc. Ralph received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Building Construction from LeTourneau University in Longview, Texas. After graduation, he moved to Memphis, TN and worked for a home builder prior to opening his own Home Design Business in 1964. Ralph and Peggy have six grown children and fifteen grandchildren. They are both active members of Bellevue Baptist Church. Besides his design work, Ralph enjoys photography and writing.

Ralph adds: "You could just tell them that I'm the son of "Pa Jones" and/or "Alley Oop" who worked at the school, and most would know right away."

Degaussed A Practical Suggestion

"The image quality of the monitor, especially the color, can be adversely affected if the internal components become magnetized. This can happen from exposure to a magnetic field (by putting a magnet such as that in a stereo speaker near the monitor's surface) or through physical shock to the CRT, and sometimes even by something as simple as changing its orientation. Magnetization manifests itself through splotches of color on the screen, especially in the corners."

Source - PCguide.com

My brain has a section devoted to data storage. In some respects it functions like a computer’s hard drive or an office filing cabinet. Unfortunately, when it comes to storage, I tend to forget where I put whatever it was that needed to be filed or stored. Worse still, I have things stored away that I may never need, but since there’s a possibility I might need it someday, I’ve hung on to it.

People, like me, who can’t bring themselves to throw something away that might one day be useful, are called packrats, a name so undesirable as to invoke a sense of guilt in the heart of the worst packrat.

My over-the-garage attic is full of items that were once good for something. Apart from the seasonally useful things like Christmas decorations and ice chests for the annual fish fry, there are boxes that are filled with computer software on floppy disks (DOS era), old manuals, books, and hardware. Some of it made it to the attic after we sold our house in Greenville, some of it came from our house on 8^th Street, and some of the contents of my attic are recent additions. My point, and I do have one, is that my attic is mostly filled with non-essential paraphernalia that should be discarded as well as things I have long forgotten I ever had.

My brain has a little attic of its own. In it are a gazillion things I’ve stashed away for future use, and they’ve been there so long, I don’t remember them. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never forgotten anything; I just store it in my personal attic with all the other stuff. And, when something someone says prompts me to poke around in my attic a while, something useful always turns up.

I had two years of physics, one in high school and one in college, and most of what I learned concerning physics is in my personal attic. I can’t tell you the last time I needed to use the word degauss, but as soon as my nephew spoke it over the Thanksgiving holiday, I recognized it as something I learned in physics.

Brett, who resides in Pearl, had read in a recent issue of RRN that, following a lightening strike at my neighbors, my TV’s picture tube suddenly had purple spots in two corners.

One afternoon, probably in the middle of a ballgame, Brett stood in front of my TV and sized up the situation, "Have you tried using a magnet, to remove the purple spots?"

"No, why would I do that?" I responded.

"Well, if you take a magnet and hold it to the screen where the spot is and move it toward the corner, you can sometimes pull the spots off the screen. Of course, you can mess up your TV, too," he cautioned. "Another option would be to degauss it."

"How do you do that," I asked, thinking the second option might be the safer of the two.

"Power off the TV, wait five or ten minutes and turn it back on," Brett explained. "But, you’ll have to unplug the TV from the wall, not just turn it off and back on."

"I’ll try that later," I replied, not wishing to interrupt my rest period with a bit of work.

Degauss returned to my attic, but by a minor miracle it dropped into my cognitive thought several days later. I was watching an un-interesting program. Barbara had gone to Wal-Mart and Jason was at his house.

"Hey, why don’t you try degaussing the TV, like Brett suggested," an inner voice whispered.

"That’s easy for you to say," I thought. "That armoire weighs a ton; what if I can’t get to the plug-in?"

Fortunately, a multiple connection adapter was within easy reach. Not knowing which of the two wires went to the TV, I unplugged the whole thing. Everything electrical inside the armoire shut off with a disturbingly loud crack. After a good ten minutes, I plugged the adapter back into the wall. The armoire’s contents were eerily quiet, until I found the remote control and started pressing buttons for the TV and the digital converter.

"Maybe, sending that boy to Math and Science School so he could go to Ole Miss and major in English wasn’t a waste after all," I mused to myself when I saw the purple spots were gone from the TV screen. "At least, he still remembered degauss."

There is, perhaps, a downside to the degaussing episode, in that I’ve probably ruined the chances for Barbara and me getting a new TV for Christmas. There’s no telling what our children will do now in the way of a Christmas gift for their parents.

Bodock Beau Christmas Nightmare

I am often frustrated with political correctness, as it limits one of our basic freedoms, freedom of speech. I feel about Christmas as the average gun owner feels about his or her gun and whose slogan is, "I’ll give up my gun when they pry my cold, dead fingers off of it." Well, I’ll give up usage of "Merry Christmas" when I’ve breathed my last.

‘Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.

See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.

It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a "Holiday".
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
Pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!

CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.

As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.

Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!

At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace.

The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate "Winter Break" under your "Dream Tree"
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.

Choose your words carefully; choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS, not Happy Holiday!

And don't forget to send a nativity scene Christmas Card to the ACLU.

Shared by Carl Wayne Hardeman

Brand Him A Greenhorn

An Easterner had always dreamed of owning a cattle ranch and finally saved enough money to buy the spread of his dreams in Wyoming.

"So what did you name the ranch?" asked a friend when he came to visit.

"We had a hard time," admitted the novice rancher. "My wife and I couldn’t agree on a name. But we finally settled on the Double R Lazy Triple Horseshoe Bar-7 Lucky Diamond Ranch."

"Wow!" exclaimed his impressed friend. "So where are all the cattle?"

"None survived the branding."

Too Thrifty

To save money, a mother of seven children frequently shopped at a bakery thrift store. She didn’t realize the impression she was making on her children until she overheard one reciting a prayer, saying, "Give us this day our day-old bread."