Christmas Blog 2013

It was our first Christmas in our own house, a 640-square-foot log cabin on an acre and a third. I loved saying that last part: An acre and a third. Imagine. Such land barons we were. As was only apt, we decided we would get our tree from, yep, that forested wonderland that was our very own acre and a third. Off into the woods we trumped, Chan carrying his ax, me scouring the woods for the perfect plump evergreen. Which, of course, in Alaska you won’t find. All that sunshine in the summer shoots those babies straight up into the sky, never giving them time to fill out and turn into beauties. But I’d been in Alaska six years by then. My hopes were quite modest. I’d once talked Chan into falling a 20 or so foot tree for it’s perfect top, only to find, once on the ground, that the top was just as scraggly as the rest of it.
But this year, our tree was coming from our little kingdom and I could afford to be generous. It didn’t take long to find a tall, not-too-Charlie Brown-esque fir. Chan chopped away until it crashed onto the snow, then we drug it through the woods, clear across our acre and a third to the little cabin door, only to find there was no way in hell that tree was going to fit in our living room — even with our vaulted, exposed beam ceilings. (I liked saying that, too.) So there was more chopping and trimming and finally the Christmas tree from our very own acre and a third stood proudly in our living room, as humanly far as possible from the wood stove. It was a Merry Christmas. We were proud homeowners, goofy newlyweds as full of hope as a young couple could be. Yes, Chan was unemployed and on his way to apprenticeship school and it would fall to me to make sure we managed to keep that little cabin in the woods, but we would manage. Somehow. As it turned out, it was the first and only Christmas we would spend in the cabin. By fall the next year, we were living in a rowhouse in Pennsylvania, not enough money even for a tree. But we made do with a swag on the apartment door, and when someone told us about the great buys at the original Reading outlets in the old brick buildings just down the hill, we scraped together a few bucks and went shopping. I found a little rocking horse pony, a Santa bear trivet and a couple of ornaments for another year’s tree. And finally, it felt like Christmas. And as blue as we might have been, we were happy all the same because we knew it would get better.
And it did.

For Jerry

  I was barely more than a toddler when he recruited me to dig for earth worms and even though I was scared of the slimy things, if my big brother wanted me – ME – to help dig for worms so he could go  fishing, I'd dig to China if need be.  He was my brother Jerry, older by 10 years, and there was nothing better than hanging with my big brother.
 Some days he rode me around the neighborhood on the handlebars of his English 10-speed. It was a feat we performed like a seasoned circus team. Me, sitting tight in the lap of the curving metal, he gliding along sure and smooth, occasionally inquiring, ‘You hanging on tight now?’ One afternoon, coming through the backyard in the low light of dusk, he hit the garden hose. I flew off and he bounced right over me. He swore and jumped from his bike to check on me, then seeing I was OK and trying to persuade me not to cry, laughed like it was the funniest trick yet. I cried anyway. I always cried. I was the baby of the family, and the crybaby. Crybaby Lori.
 And, in fairness, I occasionally had plenty of reason to cry.
 Once, as we played superhero on his twin bed, I backed up for a good run at him, backed right over the foot board and flat on my back onto the floor. ‘Oh shit, kid,’ he yelled. ‘Are you OK.’ Then, peering over the end of the bed and seeing I was breathing and non-bloodied, he laughed like it was funniest thing in the world, all the while, coaxing, ‘Come on, now, you’re OK. Don’t cry.’ Which only made my wailing louder.
 Likewise, when he tried to teach me to use his skateboard on the pavement out front, I fell and split my lip. He hurried me inside, not laughing for once, because this time there was real blood. I got butter on my spaghetti that day so the sauce wouldn’t burn my fat, cut up lip. He watched me carefully from across the table, asking, ‘You OK now, kid?’
 But sometimes he’d grow impatient with my dramatic tears, and gently scold, ‘Now quit your brootsin’ – Pennsylvania Dutch for unnecessary tears. But mostly, he was my hero.
 When my oldest sister, Shelly, one year younger than him, made me sit at the table until I finished every bite on my plate, including the peas or lima beans now grown clammy and old, it was Jerry who swept in, whisked me away and sent me running to the neighbors with instructions to stay there until our mom got home.
 And then I was eight and my brother graduated from high school and went straight off to the Navy and not long after to ‘Nam. His letters came on the powder blue U.S. Airmail stationary, usually addressed to our parents, but sometimes just to me or my sister Penny. He told us to do good in school, mind our parents and that he missed us.
 Four years later, he came home, long hair, beard, pissed off, antisocial. But underneath it all he was still Jerry. 
 One afternoon, he decided to teach me to box. I weighed in at about 95 pounds;  he was probably all of 200. He showed me how to hold my fists, where to place them to protect my face,  how to move in to land a punch. And we sparred, lightly grazing each other, mostly pretending to land punches. I moved in to throw one, and walked right into his moving fist. It laid me out flat on the kitchen floor. ‘Oh shit,’ he yelled, certain he had killed me. Too tough to cry now (or at least let anyone see) I scrambled to my feet, fists raised and ready. And once again, there was that  laugh. 
  And this is how I will remember my big brother Jerry, the twinkle in his hazel eyes, the ready laughter, the pleasure he took in having a kid sister.
  Not so long ago, when I learned that my brother was  gravely ill, of course I cried. Later, on the phone, he scolded me, a smile in his voice. ‘Now, what are you brootsin’ about?
  “I’m not,” I said.
  And I wasn’t. I was crying. Just crying.

Gorgeous Autumn

I don't know when we've had a more  beautiful fall. Simply stunning. Days like these I wouldn't dream of leaving.