CREEK ROAD GANG
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A Walk Down Memory Lane
Dori Hochcopyright 2010
“If you finish putting the candles in the windows, I’ll work on decorating the tree in the family room,” I proposed to Frank as I walked over to the CD player. Selecting Andy William’s Christmas Favorites, Celtic Woman and the Three Tenors Christmas CDs from the rack, I prepared myself for the task at hand, our “memory tree”. I needed these old familiar melodies to lift my spirits. Now that our children, 34-year-old Matt and 26-year-old Katie, had long since left the nest, Christmas just wasn’t the same. Oh, Frank and I went about the customary decorating, but it was different when the kids would pester us to put up the tree. The music was my way of prompting long ago memories in my aging brain.
Oh, how I wish Katie was here to help put on the ornaments! As a teenager, she would fuss “Oh Mom, let’s just throw this one out,” as she held up the square shaped ornament cut from a Christmas card, glued to red felt, framing a school picture of herself. “It is so ugly. I can’t believe you let me wear my hair in that boy cut when I was in the fifth grade.” Then a little while later when picking up a molded plaster snowman, Katie exclaimed, “Lindsay Becker and I made this ornament from a kit. We weren’t very good at painting, were we? Do you really want to put something so hideous on the tree?”
I shot back. “What? You have got to be kidding. That picture marks a moment in time, my dear daughter. I couldn’t have gotten you to change that hairstyle for a million dollars! Furthermore, I think that snowman is precious. That has to go onto the tree.”
With the chorus of “Silver Bells, Silver Bells” echoing, I plodded on. Opening the black metal footlocker, a relic from my long ago college days, I pulled out the top shoebox, took off the rubber band, removed the lid, and looked down at the awaiting treasures.
I deftly positioned the black film cartridge with an emerald green pompom with two googly eyes and topped with a gray lid on to a nearby branch. Not sure whose ornament this was. Both Matt and Katie had made Oscar the Grouches when they were preschoolers at our church’s nursery school. Oh, and here was the ice cream soda made from a clear plastic communion cup filled with pompoms – pink on the bottom, white in the middle and a small red one on top. I picture both Matt and Katie as preschoolers, so young, trusting, with eyes sparkling and excited as they placed them on the tree.
Next was a yellow plastic plane about four inches in length with propellers that spun when you touched them. Frank’s mother found it cleaning out her mother’s house after Nannie passed away, and gave this airplane to her three-year-old grandson, Matt. When he lost interest, it wound up on our tree where it has resided every year since.
Next were some of the stained glass ornaments Matt and I made when he was little. I remembered those “together times” of pouring out the different colored glass beads into the metal frames and carefully placing the tray into our toaster oven as we made one for each item in the song “Twelve Days of Christmas.” I attached them one by one to awaiting evergreen sprigs.
A tiny black wooden sheep with white ears, nose and legs caught me eye. I remembered that Matt, Katie, and I had each received one as a gift from Sunday school. For several years a different animal from the manger scene was given as a present. Having given the other two sheep to my kids for their own trees, just mine remained. “Alone to adorn the tree, just like me,” I lamented.
Turning over what looked like a pear shape with Merry Christmas 1997, an ornately hand beaded Santa with two shiny black eyes stared back at me. Painstaking hand sewing over a hundred pin sized beads to form a jolly St. Nick: Katie had made this special ornament for her Pop Pop to adorn the Jerusalem pine that rested on his kitchen windowsill. “Thank you Katie. Put it on the tree with the others,” Pop Pop had said with a smile. Each year she would add another creation for his “tree”, the only sign of Christmas this septuagenarian would allow in his whole house. These gifts of love from his precious granddaughter had a way of melting even the hardest scrooge’s heart. After his passing, I discovered these ornaments in a paper bag in his kitchen cupboard. I wonder if Frank and I will find decorating to be too much bother, abandoning our tree in favor of a scrawny little fir in fifteen or twenty more years. I better not complain about putting up this tree. I am not old!
Next I found a sled fashioned from four crooked popsicle sticks atop two stick runners. It was painted red with two green holly springs and the words “Merry Christmas” centered on the top of the sled. Turning it over, I saw the black letters “Cub Scouts 85 … Matt H.” Matt’s round face with a missing front tooth, dressed in his blue and yellow Cub Scout garb flashed on my internal memory monitor. I couldn’t part with this treasure. After all, it had been my gift that Christmas. On the tree it went.
“The Stahler’s candy canes!” I exclaimed. I remembered when we moved into our first home on Buttonwood Street in Fleetwood. When was that? I can’t believe that was over thirty years ago. Lawrence and Minnie were our elderly neighbors who lived across the street. When Matt and I would stop in to visit around the holidays, my preschooler would ask to play with the white and red wooden candy canes that hung on their tree. After Minnie died, Lawrence didn’t put up their tree any more. Catching me outside one day, he walked across the street and handed the canes to me saying, “Matty always liked these. Use them for your tree.” After I finished placing the third stick, I wonder if the other three were hanging right now on Matt’s tree in Georgia. Does he remember Lawrence and Minnie when he sees them? Do little Hannah and Sofie find them as fascinating as their father did some thirty years ago?
The four inch wooden replica of the steam wheeler “Mississippi Queen” went on the next available branch. Our friends, June and Tootie Daigle had sent it one Christmas to remind us of the years we shared in New Orleans during Frank’s days as a Navy musician in the first years of our marriage. June had been my student teacher at Arden Cahill Academy. “My, that was a long time ago. I’ll bet this Christmas is a tough one for June since her sister died this past summer,” I thought as I made a mental note to call her later.
I came upon a dowel rod painted with a burgundy top and white bottom. The top of this stick represented a hat. Below this cap were drawn two black eyes. Beneath them protruded an orange toothpick with a tip, broken and jagged providing the customary carrot nose. A red and black checked scarf was tied next followed by three shiny black buttons. I remembered applying three dabs of hot glue on each of the rods as my students carefully attached the buttons to finish their quirky snowmen. This ornament was one of many that I made with students during my teaching days as a first grade teacher at Richmond Elementary School. Every year, as our treat to the children, the teachers would each come up with a craft to make with them to decorate the school tree. The kids would pick a teacher’s name out of a bag whose classroom they would be assigned for the annual ornament workshop. Down to his basement workshop Frank would go to do the necessary preliminary sawing, staining, and sanding, so that all the pieces would be ready for that year’s designated ornament. Of course, my sample would always wind up on our tree.
Looking into the box, I could see other ornament samples. Yes, here was the crackle painted gingerbread man with a spiral wire attached to each arm circling the head making a jump rope. And underneath a little deeper was Rudolph with a small red pompom nose made from a paint stirrer. I remember Frank really loved having to stain over thirty of those brown. “Does it still smell like paint thinner?” I wondered as I positioned under my nose with my sensory memory providing the anticipated aroma. I wonder if Frank misses all of these little annoying projects since I left Richmond. I’ll bet not!
Our tree by this time was slowly filling up. Many ornaments were pretty but their origins had long ago left my recollection. These went on quickly. Others brought such strong sentiments they touched my heart like the warmth of a dear friend’s hug. These went on ever so slowly as if injustice would be done if they were hung with less than gentle caring hands.
Stepping back, I had to admire how truly magnificent this tree was now that it was filled with ornaments. I marveled at its beauty, just as a mother gazes with awe at her newborn miracle. When I taught nursery school, I would teach my three year olds a song that went like this. “There’s no one else, just like you. There’s no one else just like you. From the top of your head to the tip of your toe, there’s no one else just like you.” From the top of this tree to the tip of its trunk, there was no tree anywhere like the one before me for on it hangs memory keepers of my family and my life... memories that make me who I am today. And yes, my loving husband, my children, my dad, my friends, and my former students are all here with me through these special ornaments Each year as I pause to reminisce, these ornaments seem to increase in brilliance. For it is these treasured trinkets that remind me of how truly blessed I have been!
Oh, how I wish Katie was here to help put on the ornaments! As a teenager, she would fuss “Oh Mom, let’s just throw this one out,” as she held up the square shaped ornament cut from a Christmas card, glued to red felt, framing a school picture of herself. “It is so ugly. I can’t believe you let me wear my hair in that boy cut when I was in the fifth grade.” Then a little while later when picking up a molded plaster snowman, Katie exclaimed, “Lindsay Becker and I made this ornament from a kit. We weren’t very good at painting, were we? Do you really want to put something so hideous on the tree?”
I shot back. “What? You have got to be kidding. That picture marks a moment in time, my dear daughter. I couldn’t have gotten you to change that hairstyle for a million dollars! Furthermore, I think that snowman is precious. That has to go onto the tree.”
With the chorus of “Silver Bells, Silver Bells” echoing, I plodded on. Opening the black metal footlocker, a relic from my long ago college days, I pulled out the top shoebox, took off the rubber band, removed the lid, and looked down at the awaiting treasures.
I deftly positioned the black film cartridge with an emerald green pompom with two googly eyes and topped with a gray lid on to a nearby branch. Not sure whose ornament this was. Both Matt and Katie had made Oscar the Grouches when they were preschoolers at our church’s nursery school. Oh, and here was the ice cream soda made from a clear plastic communion cup filled with pompoms – pink on the bottom, white in the middle and a small red one on top. I picture both Matt and Katie as preschoolers, so young, trusting, with eyes sparkling and excited as they placed them on the tree.
Next was a yellow plastic plane about four inches in length with propellers that spun when you touched them. Frank’s mother found it cleaning out her mother’s house after Nannie passed away, and gave this airplane to her three-year-old grandson, Matt. When he lost interest, it wound up on our tree where it has resided every year since.
Next were some of the stained glass ornaments Matt and I made when he was little. I remembered those “together times” of pouring out the different colored glass beads into the metal frames and carefully placing the tray into our toaster oven as we made one for each item in the song “Twelve Days of Christmas.” I attached them one by one to awaiting evergreen sprigs.
A tiny black wooden sheep with white ears, nose and legs caught me eye. I remembered that Matt, Katie, and I had each received one as a gift from Sunday school. For several years a different animal from the manger scene was given as a present. Having given the other two sheep to my kids for their own trees, just mine remained. “Alone to adorn the tree, just like me,” I lamented.
Turning over what looked like a pear shape with Merry Christmas 1997, an ornately hand beaded Santa with two shiny black eyes stared back at me. Painstaking hand sewing over a hundred pin sized beads to form a jolly St. Nick: Katie had made this special ornament for her Pop Pop to adorn the Jerusalem pine that rested on his kitchen windowsill. “Thank you Katie. Put it on the tree with the others,” Pop Pop had said with a smile. Each year she would add another creation for his “tree”, the only sign of Christmas this septuagenarian would allow in his whole house. These gifts of love from his precious granddaughter had a way of melting even the hardest scrooge’s heart. After his passing, I discovered these ornaments in a paper bag in his kitchen cupboard. I wonder if Frank and I will find decorating to be too much bother, abandoning our tree in favor of a scrawny little fir in fifteen or twenty more years. I better not complain about putting up this tree. I am not old!
Next I found a sled fashioned from four crooked popsicle sticks atop two stick runners. It was painted red with two green holly springs and the words “Merry Christmas” centered on the top of the sled. Turning it over, I saw the black letters “Cub Scouts 85 … Matt H.” Matt’s round face with a missing front tooth, dressed in his blue and yellow Cub Scout garb flashed on my internal memory monitor. I couldn’t part with this treasure. After all, it had been my gift that Christmas. On the tree it went.
“The Stahler’s candy canes!” I exclaimed. I remembered when we moved into our first home on Buttonwood Street in Fleetwood. When was that? I can’t believe that was over thirty years ago. Lawrence and Minnie were our elderly neighbors who lived across the street. When Matt and I would stop in to visit around the holidays, my preschooler would ask to play with the white and red wooden candy canes that hung on their tree. After Minnie died, Lawrence didn’t put up their tree any more. Catching me outside one day, he walked across the street and handed the canes to me saying, “Matty always liked these. Use them for your tree.” After I finished placing the third stick, I wonder if the other three were hanging right now on Matt’s tree in Georgia. Does he remember Lawrence and Minnie when he sees them? Do little Hannah and Sofie find them as fascinating as their father did some thirty years ago?
The four inch wooden replica of the steam wheeler “Mississippi Queen” went on the next available branch. Our friends, June and Tootie Daigle had sent it one Christmas to remind us of the years we shared in New Orleans during Frank’s days as a Navy musician in the first years of our marriage. June had been my student teacher at Arden Cahill Academy. “My, that was a long time ago. I’ll bet this Christmas is a tough one for June since her sister died this past summer,” I thought as I made a mental note to call her later.
I came upon a dowel rod painted with a burgundy top and white bottom. The top of this stick represented a hat. Below this cap were drawn two black eyes. Beneath them protruded an orange toothpick with a tip, broken and jagged providing the customary carrot nose. A red and black checked scarf was tied next followed by three shiny black buttons. I remembered applying three dabs of hot glue on each of the rods as my students carefully attached the buttons to finish their quirky snowmen. This ornament was one of many that I made with students during my teaching days as a first grade teacher at Richmond Elementary School. Every year, as our treat to the children, the teachers would each come up with a craft to make with them to decorate the school tree. The kids would pick a teacher’s name out of a bag whose classroom they would be assigned for the annual ornament workshop. Down to his basement workshop Frank would go to do the necessary preliminary sawing, staining, and sanding, so that all the pieces would be ready for that year’s designated ornament. Of course, my sample would always wind up on our tree.
Looking into the box, I could see other ornament samples. Yes, here was the crackle painted gingerbread man with a spiral wire attached to each arm circling the head making a jump rope. And underneath a little deeper was Rudolph with a small red pompom nose made from a paint stirrer. I remember Frank really loved having to stain over thirty of those brown. “Does it still smell like paint thinner?” I wondered as I positioned under my nose with my sensory memory providing the anticipated aroma. I wonder if Frank misses all of these little annoying projects since I left Richmond. I’ll bet not!
Our tree by this time was slowly filling up. Many ornaments were pretty but their origins had long ago left my recollection. These went on quickly. Others brought such strong sentiments they touched my heart like the warmth of a dear friend’s hug. These went on ever so slowly as if injustice would be done if they were hung with less than gentle caring hands.
Stepping back, I had to admire how truly magnificent this tree was now that it was filled with ornaments. I marveled at its beauty, just as a mother gazes with awe at her newborn miracle. When I taught nursery school, I would teach my three year olds a song that went like this. “There’s no one else, just like you. There’s no one else just like you. From the top of your head to the tip of your toe, there’s no one else just like you.” From the top of this tree to the tip of its trunk, there was no tree anywhere like the one before me for on it hangs memory keepers of my family and my life... memories that make me who I am today. And yes, my loving husband, my children, my dad, my friends, and my former students are all here with me through these special ornaments Each year as I pause to reminisce, these ornaments seem to increase in brilliance. For it is these treasured trinkets that remind me of how truly blessed I have been!
* * *
Biographical Note: Dori Hoch was born and raised in Pennsylvania and worked for over thirty years as an elementary teacher and reading specialist. She is married to an extremely patient man and has two grown children, two adorable granddaughters, and an unaffectionate cat that was left behind when her daughter flew the coup. She caught the writing bug while enrolled in the Writing Institute of the West Chester Writing Project in 1998. She is the author of Simply Schooled in One Room Style, an expository piece about her visit to a rural one room school which appeared in Berks County Living in 2004. She belongs to two writers’ group and enjoys writing stories about her family, her insights, and travels. One of Dori’s goals is to get her historical fiction story about a student’s experiences in a one room school Pearl of Richmond School published. See Author Index Prose A-K to find more of Dori's work.
