It's amazing how fast Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to run together. The older one gets, the closer these holidays seem to occur. Remember how much fun it was to get that favorite toy? You could hardly sleep on Christmas Eve in anticipation of that big morning around the tree. Now that I'm in what is called the golden years there is no longer a favorite toy to look for. It is an accomplishment just to get up off the floor after watching the grandchildren open their presents.
I still have a fire engine given to me back in 1937. I see it everyday sitting on a shelf in our kitchen. It still has bite marks on it made by our family dog over sixty years ago.
How many toys will remain that long in these times? Back then there was steel construction and real rubber wheels. I did manage to lose my Marx caterpillar tractor. You wound it up and it spit sparks out the exhaust and ran on rubber tracks. I can still hear it running. A favorite toy among many kids was the sand loader. This toy could take sand up an elevator and dump it into a truck.
Did many of you men get a bb gun for Christmas? It just occurred to me that I have no idea what the letters BB stood for. Hmm, I wonder if that one can be found on the Internet.
When I came to Marion to work at WMRN 51 years ago I soon was given the assignment to wire up St. Mary's Church for the broadcast of the Midnight Mass. This procedure took most of the day, as we had to string microphone wires all over the sanctuary in order to pick up all parts of the mass. The choir had to be wired which was the longest run of microphone cable. During the mass it was not possible to see what was taking place. I relied on the commentator at that time, Carmen Arcuri. He later became a priest and I have not seen him since.
I am sure Midnight Mass is still as well attended as it was a half century ago. I usually finished up tearing down all the mike lines by 2:30 a.m. I volunteered to sign on Christmas morning so that I could have Christmas dinner at the regular time. The only problem I had was staying awake after getting an hour or two of sleep.
Eventually we hard-wired the entire church and then all I had to do was bring a mixer, line amplifier and microphones. I will always remember the youth choir and their Angelic voices filling the wide-open spaces of the church. Even though it was a lot of work engineering those broadcasts, there are a lot of impressive memories that will always remain.
Recently the ODOT crews renewed the berm on Route 95. The big problem that arises from this is the fact that there is hardly a berm in many places. The stone dust used for the berm might entice drivers to drive too close to the side of the road which will result in a car simply rolling over into the deep ditches that are a never ending hazard on Route 95.
It looks like a busy 2004 for me. I have a number of commitments already to do my colonial trade at festivals. I was just invited to be part of the Appalachian Tourism show on March 20 in St. Clairsville, Ohio. There will be 29 Appalachian Counties represented at the show that will be held in a brand new center west of St. Clairsville. Many of the people that I worked with a few years ago in tourism will be there and it should be a great reunion.
Some of the other events will be the Crawford Park District's annual show at the Lowe-Volk Park on the south edge of Leesville. I will also go back to the Morton one room school west of Shelby. My season usually lasts until early November.
Have a great Christmas and be sure to spend as much time as possible with your families
