Grandma and Santa Claus

Well worth the read... Merry Christmas!

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid.

I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her on the day my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been. I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true.

Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me. "No Santa Claus?" she snorted..."Ridiculous! Don't believe it. That rumour has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!! Now, put on your coat, and let's go."

"Go? Go where, Grandma?" I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun. "Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything. As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days. "Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car." Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself. The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping.

For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.

I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker. He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class. Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter. His mother always wrote a note, telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he didn't have a good coat. I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat!

I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down. "Yes, ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby."

The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat. I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat (a little tag fell out of the coat, and Grandma tucked it in her Bible) in Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it.

Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Santa's helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk. Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.

Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes. That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were -- ridiculous. Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team.

I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95.

Author unknown

When you are sad

My oath to you

When you are sad, I will dry your tears.
When you are scared, I will comfort your fears.
When you are worried, I will give you hope.
When you are confused, I will help you cope.
When you are lost, and can't see the light,
I shall be your beacon, shining ever so bright.
This is my oath to you, I pledge ‘til the end.  
Why? You may ask... because you are my friend.

Friends

Author Unknown

Friends love you tops when you are at the bottom.
Friends look up to you when the rest of the world is looking down.
Friends lets you step on their toes to help you get on your feet.
Friends show you the meaning of true friendship, not the meaningless of it.
Friends shoot straight with you, not at you.
Friends know most of your faults and care the least.
Friends tell you when you are wrong, and not everybody else.
Friends don't complain when you neglect them, only when you neglect yourself.
Friends let you worry them more than their enemies.
Friends want to know about your achievements as well as your losses.
Friends are behind you when you're taking bows and beside you when taking boos.
Friends don't split with you, when you flop, but split what they have.
Friends are your best press agents and they do this for free.
Friends have no greater love than to lay down their lives for their Friends.

Thank you for being my Friend.

How did we survive?

1. Our sandwiches contained leftover roast chicken; we didn’t have fridges in classrooms or ice bricks in our lunch boxes, but we didn’t get food poisoning.
2. We rode bikes without helmets or adult supervision or bike paths but we mostly just ended up with scarred knees.
3. Our mothers wiped our faces with spit on a hanky not an antibacterial wipe.
4. Tuckshop was sausage rolls and cream donuts but kids were wiry and fast.
5. Our parents rarely knew our teachers’ names, let alone their NAPLAN prep strategy.
6. When our teachers would whack us, we wouldn’t tell our parents for fear of getting punished again, so we avoided trouble in the first place.
7. Our trampolines were netless and sometimes hosed with water and a squirt of Palmolive for extra slipperiness.
8. What was said on the playground stayed on the playground.
9. We went on camps and excursions without 18 forms to be signed and witnessed.
10. As toddlers, we rode in supermarket trolleys without padded trolley liner thingys.
11. Angry teachers were treated with caution. We just prayed for a nice one next year.
12. Weekends were about our parents’ social lives. As kids, we played murder in the dark while parents talked with their friends and forgot we existed.
13. Generally, we went to the closest school, not the best one.
14. Kids got scared before parent-teacher interviews, not teachers.
15. We got ourselves to Saturday sport and told tall tales about how the win was won.
16. Helping with the washing up was as important as homework.
17. Birthday parties were fairy bread and Fanta, not fruit kebabs and face painting.
18. When a kid was injured, people felt sorry for her parents. They didn’t ask what the hell were they thinking letting her climb that tree anyway.
19. Cubby houses were built by kids not bought from Toys R Us.
20. If you did badly in a test, you got a talking to, not a cuddle.
21. A pocket-knife was a perfectly acceptable gift for a 10-year-old.
22. If anyone got air conditioning in their bedroom, it was mum and dad.
23. Family holidays came before kids’ sporting schedules.
24. Your dad’s desire to watch Four Corners trumped your need to watch Battlestar Galactica.
25. A teacher could put mercurochrome on a scraped knee without obtaining our parents’ permission and completing an ‘incident report’.
26. A playdate was walking to a friend’s house, ringing the doorbell and saying, ‘Can Cathy come and play?’
27. School excursions happened without a ‘risk assessment’ and a two to one kid / parent volunteer ratio.
28. There was no padding on netball hoop posts.
29. No one wrote names on cups at parties.
30. You could offer your friend a bite of your hot dog.
31. If the bus driver yelled at you, the bus driver didn’t get in trouble, you did.
32. If you didn’t make a team, you tried harder or tried something else.
33. Pass the parcel had one winner.
34. There was one kind of milk. It was full cream and it was delicious.
35. Meat was bought at the butcher, and was packed without a use-by date. Our parents used their noses to tell if the mince was off.
36. Getting one present on your Christmas wish list was good result.
37. Drives of longer than an hour happened without supplies of rice crackers and juice.
38. Going to the shops/church/the nursing home to visit Nan was boring as hell but could be endured without an iPad.
39. School holidays were about not being at school, not soccer workshops, art classes and pony camp.
40. Being tired was no excuse for being rude.
41. You had to do something great to get a ‘student of the week’ award. Not just show up at school

Dogs

When God had made the earth and sky,

The flowers and the trees, 

He made all the animals, 

The fish, the birds and bees.

When at last He finished, 

Not one was quite the same.

He said, "I'll walk this world of mine 

And give each one a name".

He traveled far and wide, 

and everywhere He went,

A little creature followed Him, 

Until it's strength was spent.

When all were named upon the earth, 

In the sky and in the sea,

A little creature said, "Dear Lord, 

There's not one left for me".

Kindly, the Father said to him, 

"I've left you to the end".

"I've turned my own name around 

And have called you Dog, my friend!"

Carl's garden

Carl was a quiet man. He didn't talk much. He would always greet you with a big smile and a firm handshake.

Even after living in our neighborhood for over 50 years, no one could really say they knew him very well.

Before his retirement, he took the bus to work each morning. The lone sight of him walking down the street often worried us. He had a slight limp from a bullet wound received in WWII.

Watching him, we worried that although he had survived WWII, he may not make it through our changing uptown neighborhood with its ever-increasing random violence, gangs, and drug activity.

When he saw the flyer at our local church asking for volunteers for caring for the gardens behind the minister's residence, he responded in his characteristically unassuming manner. Without fanfare, he just signed up.

He was well into his 87th year when the very thing we had always feared finally happened.

He was just finishing his watering for the day when three gang members approached him. Ignoring their attempt to intimidate him, he simply asked, "Would you like a drink from the hose?"

The tallest and toughest-looking of the three said, "Yeah, sure," with a malevolent little smile.

As Carl offered the hose to him, the other two grabbed Carl's arm, throwing him down. As the hose snaked crazily over the ground, dousing everything in its way, Carl's assailants stole his retirement watch and his wallet, and then fled.

Carl tried to get himself up, but he had been thrown down on his bad leg. He lay there trying to gather himself as the minister came running to help him.

Although the minister had witnessed the attack from his window, he couldn't get there fast enough to stop it. "Carl, are you okay? Are you hurt?" the minister kept asking as he helped Carl to his feet.

Carl just passed a hand over his brow and sighed, shaking his head.

"Just some punk kids. I hope they'll wise-up someday." His wet clothes clung to his slight frame as he bent to pick up the hose. He adjusted the nozzle again and started to water.

Confused and a little concerned, the minister asked, "Carl, what are you doing?"

"I've got to finish my watering. It's been very dry lately," came the calm reply.

Satisfying himself that Carl really was all right, the minister could only marvel. Carl was a man from a different time and place.

A few weeks later the three returned. Just as before their threat was unchallenged. Carl again offered them a drink from his hose. This time they didn't rob him. They wrenched the hose from his hand and drenched him head to foot in the icy water. When they had finished their humiliation of him, they sauntered off down the street, throwing catcalls and curses, falling over one another laughing at the hilarity of what they had just done.

Carl just watched them. Then he turned toward the warmth giving sun, picked up his hose, and went on with his watering.

The summer was quickly fading into fall. Carl was doing some tilling when he was startled by the sudden approach of someone behind him. He stumbled and fell into some evergreen branches.

As he struggled to regain his footing, he turned to see the tall leader of his summer tormentors reaching down for him. He braced himself for the expected attack.

"Don't worry old man, I'm not gonna hurt you this time." The young man spoke softly, still offering the tattooed and scarred hand to Carl. As he helped Carl get up, the man pulled a crumpled bag from his pocket and handed it to Carl.

"What's this?" Carl asked.

"It's your stuff," the man explained. "It's your stuff back. Even the money in your wallet." "I don't understand," Carl said. "Why would you help me now?"

The man shifted his feet, seeming embarrassed and ill at ease. "I learned something from you," he said. "I ran with that gang and hurt people like you. We picked you because you were old and we knew we could do it. But every time we came and did something to you, instead of yelling and fighting back, you tried to give us a drink. You didn't hate us for hating you. You kept showing love against our hate." He stopped for a moment.

"I couldn't sleep after we stole your stuff, so here it is back." He paused for another awkward moment, not knowing what more there was to say. "That bag's my way of saying thanks for straightening me out, I guess." And with that, he walked off down the street.

Carl looked down at the sack in his hands and gingerly opened it. He took out his retirement watch and put it back on his wrist. Opening his wallet, he checked for his wedding photo. He gazed for a moment at the young bride who still smiled back at him from all those years ago.

He died one cold day after Christmas that winter. Many people attended his funeral in spite of the weather.

In particular the minister noticed a tall young man who he didn't know sitting quietly in a distant corner of the church.

The minister spoke of Carl's garden as a lesson in life. In a voice made thick with unshed tears, he said, "Do your best and make your garden as beautiful as you can. We will never forget Carl and his garden."

The following spring another flyer went up.  It read:
"Person needed to care for Carl's garden."

The flyer went unnoticed by the busy parishioners until one day when a knock was heard at the minister's office door.

Opening the door, the minister saw a pair of scarred and tattooed hands holding the flyer. "I believe this is my job, if you'll have me," the young man said.

The minister recognized him as the same young man who had returned the stolen watch and wallet to Carl. He knew that Carl's kindness had turned this man's life around.

As the minister handed him the keys to the garden shed, he said, "Yes, go take care of Carl's garden and honor him."

The man went to work and, over the next several years, he tended the flowers and vegetables just as Carl had done.

In that time, he went to college, got married, and became a prominent member of the community. But he never forgot his promise to Carl's memory and kept the garden as beautiful as he thought Carl would have kept it.

One day he approached the new minister and told him that he couldn't care for the garden any longer. He explained with a shy and happy smile, "My wife's just had a baby boy last night, and she's bringing him home on Saturday."

"Well, congratulations!" said the minister, as he was handed the garden shed keys. "That's wonderful! What's the baby'name?"

 "Carl," he replied.

Tortoises in the mist

By Anders G. J. Rhodin

Tortoises in the mist

timeless creatures, moisture-kissed

neath shrouded trees and mossy lace

since eons past, still exist.

On crater rim, a magic place

tortoises move, at their pace

from caldera floor below

ponderous steps, gentle grace.

Ringed by fire, lava flows

spared the whalers’ deadly blows

survive serene, Alcedo home

enchanted isles, Galápagos.