Monty Edwards: My Christmas Story!
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By Monty Edwards
EDITOR’S NOTE — We asked Monty if he would be included in our annual Christmas Remembering stories for the holiday season. Monty chose to write his own Christmas story. Read On.
Near the end of November, while I was leaving the Downing Café, I walked by the table where the guys of the 8:00 o’clock crew come in and eat, converse, and shake dice. When Carlton said to me, “I am looking for a victim.”
I didn’t reply immediately, and then I said how about these guys? Hoping to evade whatever he was about to spring on me.
Then Carlton said he needed a story for the Tribune about something that happened to me at Christmas time when I was a kid and that each year he puts some stories in the paper.
[emember_protcted] I quickly surmised by the grin on his face that he wanted something funny, and I guessed that that was what he meant, by needing a victim, at my expense. And without too much thought put into my answer I said I got one. Darn, I answered too quickly, oh well, I’ll tell it and what I learned at a young age. Looking back, what happened to me was not like what Ralphie did or what he experienced in the old movie “A Christmas Story,” but still what I did and how it ended is not totally unlike it either.
I didn’t go to such connivery to achieve my goal, nor did I get a boot in my face from Santa that pushed backwards down the slippery slide of what Ralphie thought was a lack of concern for his deep desire to get a Red Rider BB gun for Christmas.
I didn’t get bullied and old Shep, our farm dog didn’t abscond with the Christmas ham from the dinner table, and no, Dad didn’t have a leg lamp in our living room, made from a ladies manikin.
The year was 1957, I was eight years old, Christmas was approaching and at that age most kids pretty much know what they wanted for Christmas, they knew because I think every family would start getting wish books around two months before Christmas. We got Montgomery Wards and Sears Roebuck catalogs and when they came, I knew right where the boys’ toys were and opened to them, I read each offer, and the info on the items that caught my eye, and started my campaign to get the dream toy I wanted.
Most years, give or take a toy or two, I got three toys, but that year, I say it, a toy most unbelievable and a mechanical wonder. It was a toy steam engine. It was mounted on a board, fill it with water and plug it in and wa-la in fifteen minutes you could belt it up and grind feed, no not really. It was only five pounds and it could fit in a bread tin. It wasn’t rated for horsepower, but it maybe could power a small Ferris wheel from an erector set. It was all about making steam power to turn a wheel and I wanted it!
Somehow this whole thing about getting a steam engine for Christmas gripped me like no other, and for one thing I was sure Mom and Dad wouldn’t even consider it. When they heard the price of it, and my other brother, Will, wasn’t looking to get a toy of this caliber, even at eight years I kinda knew when you were shootin too high and asking for too much, but I pressed on, you know, good behavior, work hard, all the right stuff that will bring a good reward, but I tell you it bugged me and consumed my thoughts, and then when I did everything right before the powers that be. I just didn’t have any guarantee that it would be under the Christmas tree, Christmas eve.
My mother liked a good laugh and she got it just by watching me worry and squirm, but she never let on to me, or showed any concern, like whatever gifts we got was what Santa found in the bottom of his bag of goodies.
The time came and Mom said, “You can open your gifts now.” Off came the wrapping paper and there it was, just like the picture in the catalog. Will and I poured a pint of water into the boiler and plugged it into the 110-volt outlet and in a short order it was up and running and boy did it go. The flywheel must have been going a thousand miles an hour, or so we thought, anyway, it was a lot of fun and others enjoyed it too, it was the main attraction.
There’s an old saying “What goes up must come down,” and that was about to happen on the first day in January when school resumed after Christmas vacation. Upon returning to White Birch School, which was a one-room school house, that had first through eighth grades and about thirty or forty students. Our teacher, Mrs. Canfield asked all students to stand up one at a time, by our desk, and tell what we got for Christmas. She thought that would be a good way to begin the New Year and get the students back into the learning process. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, or so I thought.
Well when it came to my turn to pronounce to the others just what a grand mechanical wonder I had received, and I thought that I was somehow a little more special than they because Mom and Dad had broke the piggy bank in order to buy it for me. I blurted out, I got a steam engine and it cost fourteen dollars and ninety-five cents.
Well, it was obvious to all in the classroom that I was up and a little proud of my gift, everyone broke out in laughter at my declaration and I in a moment of time was embarrassed and sat down quickly and right then and there I swallowed my pride and realized I wasn’t any more special than others and not to boast of what I had. All the kids had a good laugh and as for me I was back down on planet earth.
By the way I still have the toy and once in a great while it’s brought out and powered up.
Merry Christmas! [/emember_protcted]