Things I'll never do

Did I ever tell you about how I used to sell Christmas trees? I don't think I have. Anyway, I did. When I worked at a garden center in Knoxville we sold Christmas trees, at Christmas obviously. Mostly it was pretty good fun. The smell of the firs and spruces. Using a chainsaw to put a fresh cut on a Christmas tree. Chainsaws are fun.

Mostly it was fun. But sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes people weren't as nice as they could have been. Like the guy who threatened his wife because she ordered a big ass live blue spruce for their entry foyer and he was gonna pop her if it scratched the marble tiles. (It was a questionable choice of tree, but hardly an excuse for domestic violence)

Another time, I saw this mom tell her kid who was - I don't know - seven? - that he could pick out any tree in the lot. He was a thoughtful little guy and he wandered amongst the trees and picked one out. It was a good tree. Even, full, of a harmonious conical shape, nice good limb development for optimal ornament hang-age. Well, I can't remember, but I do remember being pretty impressed with his choice. On the other hand, we didn't have many duff trees.

All the trees were hung up with twine from the marquis frame, so the kid pointed out his tree and Bruce (a co-worker) and I cut down the tree and started to take it over for the fresh cut to the base. Now once we make that fresh cut, you have to buy that tree - that's the rule. But mom comes out and directs dad and kid inside to look at the poinsettias - and tells us that she really wants this other tree instead.

The tree is really no better, really not that much different. But mom's the one with the money, so we do what she wants and we don't say anything.

Bruce and I feel bad about it, so we work quick. Normally the fresh cut and the baling will be more or less a one person job, but we worked together so that we could get that tree baled up and tied onto the roof of their car before the kid comes back out again.

We were just tying the last knots on the luggage rack when the kid comes up to us and says, in a quiet voice. "That's not my tree, is it?" He seemed more resigned than upset. We could have lied - cheerfully. We could have. But something about the way he said it - we just looked at each other and said "No, it's not." And the kid was not surprised, it clearly wasn't the first time something like this had happened.

Anyway, I swore when I had a kid, this would be something I'd never do. If it mattered that much to me, I wouldn't offer a choice. Cause a kid can tell his own tree even baled up and tied to the roof of a car.

-0-

Chris is wrestling with the things he said he'd never do as a parent. Like use the tv as a mollifier. I think I said something like that, too. Plus we agreed we'd stop swearing. Well, that hasn't happened. Never say never. But I'm still sticking with my promise not to pull a stunt like the Christmas tree swap.

Granddad blogging: Loot

Last week my grandfather managed to get off the front and become a cook in the army. This week he finds a train and gets some booty.

You asked me how I came to have this German silverware that I have. When the war was drawing to an end the Germans were abandoning trains, aeroplanes, buses, cars and tanks and everything else. And I didn’t have any idea why then, but the simple fact was that they were running out of oil. Their sources of oil had all been cut off. The fields that were in Romania and Bulgaria had been bombed. They couldn’t any more from Russia. Their oil fields, limited that they were had been bombed. They didn’t have any tankers that could bring oil into ‘em and they had plenty of tanks and aeroplanes and trains and that sorta stuff but they were all parked and camoflaged.

I remember walking down the autobahn. And I had never seen an autobahn, we call them Interstates here, and there were aeroplanes parked on the right and left and camoflaged. All up and down the autobahn. They used the autobahns for airstrips for the planes to take off and land on. And they were good, new-looking planes sitting there. I knew we hadn’t been strafed or shot at by planes in a long time, and I didn’t understand why. And I didn’t understand why the tanks weren’t running or anything else.

And somewhere between Munich and Nuremberg, I don’t remember where, I probably have it written down somewhere, but I’ve forgotten, we came upon a great long train. It was sittin’ on a track in some woods, and it was covered up with pine trees and everything else. Camoflaged so it couldn’t be seen at all, and when we came up on it we began poking around in it and decided it wasn’t booby-trapped, so we really began poking around then. I was in the cooking end of the outfit at that time, so I was always interested in finding any food that we possibly could. And rattled around in the dining cars and kitchen all along this train. And there were sets of silver and china and crystal, of real fine stuff, I thought. And it was sterling silver, and it was good china and it was real good crystal. And people were lootin’ it pretty fast.

And we could loot it because... Looting’s the wrong word, confiscating it. We could confiscate it because it had DR on it. Deustche Reich. And it had a swastika on it, and it had the German eagle on it, so it was eligible to be taken if we wanted it. And I took a set of silver. Everything that I could get. Knives and forks and spoons and serving spoons and serving pieces and this, that and the other. A whole lot of it.

I had in mind when I took it that I was gonna send it home. And I got it all and wrapped it up the best I could and put it in a tow sack, and took the tow sack or croker sack some people would call it and throwed it in the back of a trailer that was hooked on to a jeep. And the reason I used this trailer is because it was where I carried the crudest of field kitchen stuff that we used to cook for the people that were in this part of battalion headquarters. And I went to one of the officers and asked him if we would sign to let me send this home, because you couldn’t send German contraband home unless it had an officer’s signature on it. And he said, yeah he would sign for it and let me send it home, but he’d have to have all the teaspoons. He wanted them. I gave 12 I believe, I kept a few, but I kept all the rest of it, and I wrapped it up in sacks and got me some boxes and tied strings and paper stuff around it got him to stamp his OK on it and shipped it to [my wife]. And that’s the story of that.

Note: This silverware was used at big gatherings where he and my grandmother didn't have enough sterling to go around. So often we ate Christmas Eve or Thanksgiving Dinner off Nazi silver. The silver is very good quality, but by this time, the German steelmaking capacity was decreased and that steel that there was, I presume was going to the war effort - so the blades of the knives which were stainless steel have not held up over 50 years of use.

This set of silver is now mine, but my brother and I had a little "dispute" over this. He finally agreed that I could have them so long as I never took them out of the country (for use or donation). One spoon was given to my mother-in-law (by my grandfather) so that's now in Europe. The rest will stay in America.

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Technorati tags: oral history, WWII, history

A bit of harmless fun

I'm so, so, so sick of people just poo-pooing everything, anything that's fun.

C'mon people. Halloween is just a bit of fun. My previous Halloween post, was linked to by this guy - who says:

Secondly, Halloween is a hijacked American tradition of blasphemous commercialism. Even though there are traces to Druid and Celtic culture, there is now no real relevance to the United Kingdom except to sell products. Though many would disagree with this opinion!

And today on Nashville is Talking, Brittney (Happy Birthday, BTW) linked to a post about a school that's cancelled their traditional Halloween celebrations because a few parents were offended.

And soon we move into the holiday season of banned Christmas trees and so forth.

Now, I know that I come from a tradition of Halloween trick-or-treating, and Christmas trees and carolling and Easter eggs and the 4th of July... and I'm awful fond of those traditions. And I get a little upset when people try to tear them down when they aren't really hurting anyone. I'm all for separation of church and state, but there's a big difference between school prayer and a little yule time pine.

But you know, I don't really stop with just the festivals of my own culture, I like Cinco de Mayo and Chanuka and Texas Independence Day and Mardi Gras, Guy Fawkes night and I'll put out a flag for St George's Day in England - all things I didn't grow up celebrating, but are a good excuse for some fun. People who are offended by any of these should just avert their eyes.

If you've got a fun holiday that involves beer or nice food, I'm all over that. And even if I'm not invited to participate, I don't want to stop you from having fun*. Put up your decorations, put them up in the office, I love glitz. Bring in some food for Eid - I'll eat it and say "Happy Eid". It all adds to the color.

I will say that I'm not so much into the holidays that involve fasting or scourging. But don't let me stop you.


*I've got to draw the line a little bit at Diwali - when I lived in a predominately Hindu area it was fireworks every night til very late for around a month. That gets old. I like Diwali decorations and I'm up for a few nights of firecrackers, but not a month of disturbed sleep and terrified cats.