BY MICHAEL M. ALVAREZ
I pull up slowly and stop near the chained gate. For the hundredth time, I read the sign: KEEP OUT PRIVATE PRO P-ERTY. As I wait for my friends, Larry and Tony, to arrive, I glance at the house again.
Old Man Valentine's house hasn't changed much since I was a child. It still looks a little scary. I smile as I recall the first time we ventured onto that porch. It had been 1964, and we were fearless.
“I dare you!” Tony said.
“I double dare you,” Larry added.
I stood between the two best friends any eleven year old could have, and swallowed the huge lump in my dry throat. It was two days before Christmas, and everyone was getting ready for the holidays. Mom was baking, and I had just helped Dad put up the foil tree with the rotating colored lights. We three boys had found a few minutes to ourselves, and had walked directly to this house as if pulled there by some invisible force.
“C'mon, Mikey, you gonna stand there all day or you gonna go up and knock on the door?” Tony challenged.
“I'll go if you guys come with me,” I answered.
“Okay,” they agreed.
Slowly, one cautious step at a time, we moved toward the house that most people in town swore was haunted. The story was that when Old Man Valentine's wife was alive, they were both happy and friendly with everyone in town. Then Mrs. Valentine got sick. No one really knew what was wrong with her, but after a while, neither of them left the house. Some days, Old Man Valentine went into town to buy groceries and pay bills, but the rest of the time he and his wife stayed inside their big, rambling house.
A few years later, someone in town said they'd heard from Doc Johnson that Mrs. Valentine had died. Someone else said Old Man Valentine went crazy and kept his wife's body somewhere inside the scary old house. Perhaps, they said, he might have buried her in the backyard.
When we finally stood in front of the splintered front door, we blinked rapidly, hoping we weren't making a mistake. Taking a deep breath, I gave Tony and Larry a thumbs-up sign, and we all knocked on the door at the same time.
“Go away!” bellowed Old Man Valentine from behind the door.
Though ready to run, we stood our ground. In the next heartbeat, the front door screeched and began to open slowly. We could see only darkness beyond. We waited a moment, wondering if we had really heard a voice or if we had imagined it. From somewhere in the darkness, the voice sounded again, friendlier this time.
“Well, might as well come in, boys. And close that door — it's freezing outside.”
We looked at one another, our eyes huge in our pale faces. Once we had stepped inside, the front door swung shut. Trapped! my mind screamed. The only moment of clarity I recall was a question that repeated over and over in my mind: What would the Lone Ranger do?
I didn't have time to figure it out, because the voice came again.
“I'm in the kitchen, boys. Just follow the light,” the voice said. I looked at Tony and Larry. I'm sure the Lone Ranger would have gotten more details before he followed that shaft of light, but when my friends started moving toward the voice, I went with them. The aroma of freshly baked cookies reached us as we neared the light.
When we peeked inside the kitchen, we were startled to see an elderly man with white hair opening the oven door. Old Man Valentine didn't look like a monster. He was old, but he didn't look like any of us had imagined. He was a little hunched over, and used a walking cane that was carved out of mesquite. He looked up and nodded.
“Just in time, my friends,” he said, as he pulled a tray of cookies from an ancient oven. “I'd like your opinion on my pumpkin cookies. I tried to follow Millie's recipe, but I'm afraid I'm not as good a cook as she was.” He moved to the table and sat down.
We stood in the doorway, tongue-tied. Finally, we moved to the table and joined him.
Tony's tongue came untied first. “You don't look crazy.”
The way Old Man Valentine stared at Tony, I thought we were goners for sure, but the strangest thing happened. The old man threw back his head and belted out the biggest laugh I'd ever heard!
When he was able to stop laughing, he smiled. “I'm not crazy, boys. Guess just a bit lonely most of the time. When I think of Millie being gone, I get a bit sad, but I ain't crazy.”
“This is good!” Larry said, munching a cookie.
The cookies were good. Tony and I slowly chewed one cookie, swallowed it carefully, and then tried another.
“Sorry,” the old man said, shrugging his shoulders. “I don't have any milk.”
We were perfectly happy without milk, but before we could say so, Tony blurted out another question, which had us squirming in our chairs.
“So where's your wife?” Tony asked, as he took another bite of his cookie.
The old man leaned on his cane and gently shook his head. “Suppose in the same cemetery where she was buried twenty years ago. Got cancer, Millie did. 'Course the docs didn't know what to do in those days. All they could do was watch her fade away.” Mr. Valentine looked at the floor, his lips drawn tight.
I swallowed the cookie and then cleared my throat. “I'm sorry about your wife.”
A sad smile appeared on his face and he looked up at me. “I miss her the most around the holidays. Millie loved cooking during the holidays,” he murmured, then went silent again.
That day, in 1964, we discovered the truth about Old Man Valentine. He wasn't a mean, crazy, old man who lived in a large, spooky house. He was just a gentle, quiet man, who loved his wife very much and cherished her memory. He wasn't a man to be frightened of — he was a man who needed friends, especially around the holidays.
We made a pact that day: The three of us would always get together for the holidays and visit Mr. Valentine.
The flash of headlights interrupts my thoughts as two cars pull up. I smile when I see Tony and Larry step from their cars, ready and eager — as am I — for another holiday visit with Mr. Valentine.
Home for the Holidays
BY WAYNE R. WALLACE
I was nineteen years old when I shipped out to basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. Away from home for the first time, those six weeks of training passed quickly. From there, I received orders to go to Gunter AFB in Alabama, for training as a medical corpsman.
When we arrived, our technical school was closed for the Christmas holiday. We were placed on PAT — Personnel Awaiting Training — status until after New Year's Day. This meant spending every other day on twelve hours of K.P. — washing dishes, cleaning up the mess hall, and anything else the mess sergeants didn't want to do themselves. The days in between, however, were spent helping out with various assignments that ranged from picking up trash to actual office duties. It made for a nice change of pace, but now that the newness of being in the service had begun to wear off, I thought more and more about home. What I wouldn't give to have the chance to visit home before I was sent overseas … and Christmas was coming up.
One afternoon, I drew the lucky card. I got the job of filling in as “gopher” for one of the colonels on the base. I was to answer the phone and take messages on a yellow tablet for him while he spent the day on leisurely time off, playing golf.
I settled into the big leather chair behind the Colonel's desk that morning and began my duties. I answered calls, writing out the Colonel's messages in my very best script, in the hopes that I might get asked back for this cushy job. Around mid-morning, an Air Force Reserve Major at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma City called.
“Tell the Colonel that we have sixty-five Air Force Reservists training there at Gunter from the Oklahoma City area,” he said. “They've been away from home for a few months, and if he will be kind enough to grant them leave, we'll send a transport jet to pick them up on December 20th. Since their school is closed for the holidays, this will allow them to spend Christmas with their families, and we'll bring them back right before New Year's.” He waited a moment, then asked, “Have you got all that?
”
I must have hesitated for a moment before answering, because I couldn't believe my ears! Oklahoma City was my hometown, too! “Y-Yes, sir, I have it all,” I stammered. “I'll relate this to the Colonel as soon as he returns. Thank you very much, sir!”
This was just too good to be true. Granted, there were a few problems involved. First, the Major had mentioned just Air Force Reservists who were on the base. I was regular Air Force. At that time, the Vietnam War made getting into the reserves an extremely hard task. Reservist positions were filled by the sons of politicians and other privileged persons who did not care to visit the jungles of Vietnam. I had not been one of the fortunate. Being regular Air Force, I was a prime candidate for Asian duty. This would probably be my last Christmas stateside for a very long time. And I wanted to go home.
“The uniform's the same,” I said aloud to convince myself it could be done. “Who'll ever know?”
As soon as the Colonel returned, I jumped to attention and saluted him smartly. I took his coat and hung it up, then began to relate his messages. When I got to the message from Tinker AFB, his reaction stunned me.
“Damn,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “They sure spoil those weekend warriors! I have a good notion to deny them leave and make them stay here!”
My heart sank.
The Colonel read the disappointment on my face and said, “What's the problem, airman?”
“Sir, Oklahoma City is my hometown, too. My mother is there, and my sweetheart. I would kill to get on that airplane,” I answered honestly.
“But you're regular Air Force, son,” the Colonel reminded me. “That plane's for those reservist pansies!”
“I know, sir, and you know … but they'd never know!”
He grinned, and began handwriting a memo. “Give this to the Sergeant at the orderly room and have him notify the reservist's commander of this opportunity. While you're at it, have him type you a leave slip so you can go, too.”
“Oh, thank you, sir!” I said.
“It does my heart good to be able to send a regular on that Christmas flight with that bunch of weekenders!” the Colonel said.
I ran out the door to the orderly room a block away. When I got there, a cigar-chomping Master Sergeant sat behind the desk, and seemed to be in a terrible mood. I handed him the handwritten memo.
“No-good weekend warriors!” he grunted. “Nobody seems interested in sending my troops home to see their mommies,” he snapped sarcastically, and began to pound out the memo on an ancient Royal typewriter. I stood, waiting for him to finish.
“What are you waiting for, airman?” the Sergeant growled around his cigar.
“Well, Sergeant,” I said nervously, “the Colonel told me to have you type a leave authorization for me so I could go, too.”
The Sergeant threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah, sure he did. I'll believe that when he tells me. Now get out of here.”
I was devastated. I went back to the Colonel's office and reported that the memo had been delivered.
“Well, shouldn't you be at the barracks packing?” he asked.
“Sir, the Sergeant didn't believe me. He said he'd believe it when he heard it from you.”
Without a word, the Colonel reached for the phone and dialed the orderly room.
“Sergeant,” he snapped, “I'm sending Airman Wallace back over there and you will drop everything else you might be doing and immediately type this young man's leave authorization. Is that understood?” He hung up without waiting for an answer. Then he looked at me. “Now, go get that leave paper and have a Merry Christmas.”
I rushed back to the orderly room and found the Master Sergeant sitting in a cloud of cigar smoke, typing my leave authorization. He glanced up at me and frowned. “Airman Wallace,” he said slowly, as if to memorize my name, “I will remember this incident. Screw up just one time while you're here, and I'll have you out on Air Force garbage collection duty so fast you won't believe it!”
I nodded and accepted the leave with wings on my feet. He could have threatened to shoot me — I wouldn't have cared. I was going home for Christmas!
Some Gifts Cannot Be Wrapped
BY LYNNE COOPER SITTON
Grandmother dozed in her armchair, her head dropping onto her chest. She resembled a papoose wrapped in layers of cloth. Her shawl covered her boney shoulders, and a thick afghan spread across her lap and wound around her legs. Despite dry heat spewing from the radiator beside her, Grandmother looked like she belonged in an igloo. The unmistakable odor of antiseptic and urine clung to everything in the tiny nursing home room she shared with a bedridden roommate.
My two young sons knew the rules for obligatory visits with their ninety-five-year-old great-grandmother: no bickering, speak clearly, and don't ask when we're leaving.
As the boys waited for my signal to enter, Grandmother stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled a toothless grin I hardly recognized as hers.
“Lynne, dear!” She motioned us closer with an emaciated hand. “And Jay and Andrew! What a nice surprise.”
“We've come with some Christmas cheer,” I said, placing a windowsill-sized arrangement of holly and pine beside her as I kissed her withered cheek.
Glancing around the room, I noticed three Christmas cards on her small bookcase and felt a shroud of sadness descend. She had outlived almost everyone who had sent greetings in past years. Grandmother's two favorite pictures hung on the wall and several family photos fought for space among the tissue box, magnifying glass, napkins, and plastic cups on her nightstand. These few personal touches, and Grandmother's overstuffed armchair, failed to overcome the drab institutional beige.
The boys sat dutifully on Grandmother's tightly made hospital bed, and I, glancing at my watch to note “appropriate visiting time,” grabbed the only remaining chair in the room. Grandmother nodded appreciatively while I gave her a rundown about family activities, the boys' school projects, and Christmas dinner at my parents' house.
“We're looking forward to having you with us,” I said, preparing to leave. “Nobody in the family can make gravy like you do!” Rumor had it that my grandmother had never made a batch of lumpy gravy in her life.
As I stood to go, Grandmother motioned me to her side and hissed in my ear, “Lynne, dear, do you have two dollars I can borrow?”
I frowned. Why would she need money? “I've got a five or ten dollar bill,” I whispered back, just loud enough for the hearing aid. “Will that do?”
“No,” she sighed. “Just two dollar bills.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes, dear.” Grandmother seemed very disappointed.
As she answered, her eyes swept over my sons. I looked from her to them and back again, and her odd request suddenly burst into a heart-wrenching realization: She wanted one dollar for each of her great-grandsons; she had nothing to give them!
“Just a second,” I said to Grandmother and my sons, “I'll be right back.”
I strode down the cheerless hall into a Christmas fairyland of poinsettias, multicolored lights, and wreaths that decorated the nurse's station. Hundreds of images of Grandmother's presence in my life tumbled through my mind. My sons would never know their great-grandmother as I did. They saw only a wizened old lady, caught without gifts to give, in the shadows of her last years. They hadn't jumped rope with her when she turned sixty. They had never seen the exquisitely embroidered bodice of my wedding gown or the colorful pillowcases with my name on them that were my childhood treasures. The boys didn't know her favorite flowers were violets, or that she had survived diphtheria, and had been tossed out of a runaway horse and buggy as a child. They had never seen Grandmother cut sandwiches into smiley faces so they tasted better. They didn't know she had hand-stitched hundreds of tiny doll clothes for her granddaughters, and matching Christmas outfits for us. They didn't know who taught me to embroider or told me all the funny family stories. They had never tasted her amazing made-from-scratch desserts or
seen one of Grandmother's beautiful crepe-paper flower arrangements. My boys saw only the wrinkled exterior wrapping of one of my life's richest blessings.
“Change for a five?” I asked as I held the bill toward a heavyset nurse at the console. Her red-and-green bell earrings tinkled as she retrieved a few crumpled dollar bills from a zippered bag.
“Here you are, honey,” she said with a grin.
I smiled my thanks and hurried back to Grandmother's room, secretly slipping four of the five bills into her hand. Grandmother gave me a grateful nod, and then offered her gifts to Jay and Andrew. The boys were gracious, but I knew they weren't exactly overwhelmed by two dollars.
Right then and there, I decided my sons needed to discover who their great-grandmother really was. Grandmother's faith, wisdom, heritage, knowledge, and experiences sparkled far more beautifully than anything we could wrap and place beneath a Christmas tree.
Despite the boys' obvious glares, I pulled my chair closer to Grandmother's chair and asked her to tell us how she had been kicked in the stomach by a cow when she was Andrew's age. That story unlocked a treasure chest of other stories, lessons, people, and experiences that had occurred throughout her life. Andrew and Jay hung on her every word, asking questions and laughing along with her. I moderated — prompting her to tell one story after another.
The sparkle in Grandmother's eyes as she shared her memories that afternoon bridged another generation. A lump grew in my throat at the expression of rapt attention I saw on my sons' faces. They would remember much more than a stuffy nursing home when they thought of their great-grandmother in years to come, and by the look on Grandmother's face, I knew the gift they had given her that Christmas was priceless.
In the Nick of Time
BY MIMI GREENWOOD KNIGHT
I was ten the year God sent grandchildren to Mama for Christmas. My little sister Betsy was seven. We were the babies in a family of twelve and, since we were both newly hip to the whole Santa thing, it would be the first Christmas in twenty years that Mama wasn't playing Santa to someone. At the time, my brother, Wayne, was the only sibling with children, and he and his wife had recently transferred clear across the country to California. Though Mama tried not to let it show, we knew she was depressed.
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