HallaKeySheMo: Christmas Tales, Past & Present

Merry Christmas one and all. Twas the night before Christmas and all that stuff. Thought I'd tell a tale or two for your enjoyment and the perpetuation of family legends. The first goes back to Christmas morning of 1958 when I was 8 (the year before my pickup was made). Grandpa Jones gave me a Gene Autry two holster pistol set and the proverbial dime-novel featuring, you guessed it, Gene Autry. So there I was with Christmas debree surrounding me all over the floor, wear my flannel PJs (sans-booties, I had out grown them so Mom cut the booties off for me) in the big old Lions-Head rocking chair, wearing my dual pistol set, and reading about Gene and his adventures. I kept coming to this one word that I couldn't sound out using those bull-crud phonetics they used to teach. Seemed every time Gene got into trouble or in a fight he used his Wee-Ah-Pons to get out of trouble, and I couldn't figure out what it was. So finally I asked Grandpa: "Grandpa, whats this word here, what is a Wee-Ah-Pon?" Of course Grandpa didn't have any idea what I was talking about, so he had me bring my book over to him so he could see what it was. I pointed it out, and Grandpa started belly-laughing. He says, "Butch, that's his weapons boy, his weapons. You know, his guns and knifes." I had used those damned phonetics rules and sounded out that damn word and instead of weapons had gotten Wee-Ah-Pons. I betcha hes still sitting up there right now laughing about that.

Then there was the Christmas of 1968, just about 10 years later. By then I was enjoying my stay in in Dothan Ala-By-God-Bama as a guest of Uncle Sam. Krista had sent me a Christmas package then written a letter to me telling me it was on the way. Three buddies and I decided that we were going to try to get home for Christmas. We couldn't afford to fly so we were going to car pool. One guy lived in Evanston, Wyoming, two in Salt lake, and them me down in Orem. So we left Ft Rucker on the 22nd of December with a plan to drive diagonally towards the west-north west to Oklahoma City, then North through Kansas, and Nebraska, and catch I-80 west to Evanston. Their were big blizzards predicted for the Rockies so we figured that travel by the shortest route would be problematic. The plan was to drive straight through, trading off driving and riding in a 57 Chevy. All went well through the first long day and afternoon. By evening we were almost through Kansas and approaching the Kansas-Nebraska border. The weather had been getting progressively worse as the day wore on. By mid-afternoon we were driving through interim sleet, and by that night we were in a no kidding plains snow storm. We crossed over into Nebraska near a town called Bothelo (or something like that) and were north of town in a convoy of four or five cars. The lead car was a station wagon, it started to swerve around, did a 360, then ended up sitting perpendicular to the road blocking both lanes. The driver tried to get back in his lane but his tires just spun. So everyone in our car and drivers from a couple of others got out and we pushed this guys wagon back into position. By the time we got him straighted around everyone elses cars were drifted in, no movement possible. Looking off in the distance I saw a farm house with lights on, so my buddy and I started walking though the fields headed for this house. I thought I'd never get there and was frozen solid by the time we arrived. We explained our predicament to the farmer. He called the state roads guys, sat my buddy and I down by the fire place while his wife fed us hot coffee; then he went out and cranked up his big old closed cab tractor and towed everyone into his barn yard. We all sat around drinking coffee and coco until the state roadies arrived. They came out with two huge snow plows and cleared the road to where we were at. Then they escorted us back to town. Turned out that just about the time we left town they closed the road. All of us refugees were housed in the town churches recreation room. Everyone in every vehicle in our little convoy turned out be soldiers or soldiers families trying to get home for Christmas. So now its the 23rd and then the 24th and were stuck in Nebraska, and looked like we were going to be there for Christmas. We had all been able to call home so folks wouldn't worry, but we weren't going anywhere. In the wee-hours of Christmas morning, long before decent folks are up, a guy comes busting into the church wearing a big plaid coat and one of those hats with ear flaps turned down and tied under his chin, and rubber boots up to his knees. He starts asking around and for someone and we finally find out that he's asking for one of the guys traveling with me. This guys wakes all four of us up, gets us to pack our gear out his 4 wheel-drive international, and then he hauls us all to the airport in Omaha and gives each of us an airlines ticket. Turns out that my buddies Daddy is some kind of a wheel in the Masons, and he had pulled some Mason strings and arranged for all of us to fly home. I got home on Christmas Day at about noon. Now hows that for a Christmas miracle. The second half of the miracle is that exactly one year later when I was in sunny southeast Asia, Christmas of 1969, Krista's box of home made divinity candy caught up to me. By then it was rock hard, but everyone loved it. It was like pure hard rock sugar candy that dissolved in your mouth.

Now lets jump forward to Christmas 1973, Leora and I had been married about a year and half and Little Leora was about six months old. the plan was to go to the Tingeys for Christmas. I had to work on the 24th so we were going to make the 3-4 hour drive on Christmas morning. So away we go, in my 69 Firebird 400. the going was great from Orem up Provo Canyon through Heber, but it turned out real foul as we headed up Daniels Canyon. Some where between Strawberry and Duchesne I had to give up, I was literally pushing snow with the front end of my Firebird, the snow was rolling up over my headlights and off the sides of my fenders. I told Leora that I simply wasn't pushing it any further, so we turned around and headed back home. Leora kind a cried off and on all the way home. I decided to treat her dinner before taking her home, so went to the only restaurant open in

Provo-Orem on Christmas day, it was that Chinese place that used to sit at the bottom of the Provo-Orem hill. Both Leora and Little Leora boo-hooed all the way through dinner. In all the years after that we never went back to that Chinese place, Leora just didn't want to go.

Saving other stories for other times, lets jump forward to now. We're doing fine. All of you are each in your homes this year, and that's OK. I hope that you each have wonderful Christmas full of memories for future tales. My main event was getting my 59 Chevy today. Here's a few pictures. My buddies tell me that sounds better than my Harley. It definitely has throaty rumble.