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Myra, Romay, and I put on our winter gear, grabbed the hand
saw from the porch and stepped out into the dark and cold. -20 in December does not really feel all that
frigid in the interior where there is no wind, and all the water is frozen
solid.
“Are you
sure about this?” Romay questioned as we trudged through the knee-deep snow out
into the backyard in search of our quarry.
“We’ve got
to have one,” Myra reassured.
“It’ll be
fine,” I added, the beams from our headlamps bouncing off of the snow banks and
illuminating the snow-covered spruce.
It was
Christmas Eve and the Harris house was still without a Christmas tree. Usually, people could confirm their calendars
by the arrival of a lit tree in the window of our home, Myra setting the day
after Thanksgiving as our traditional tree cutting and trimming date.
This year
we had a few other irons in the fire, and though John Denver and the Muppets
were often heard singing Christmas carols in our house, it was because I was
singing along while plumbing the toilet, or running the waste line from the
bathroom into the main line leading to our sewage box outside or grouting the
tile countertops in our kitchen.
As a way to
remove ourselves from the craziness that had been house building (we started
putting in the foundation just before school got out in the spring and had a
flushing toilet at the beginning Christmas break), we jumped on a RAVN flight
to Fairbanks to do a little shopping, eat out, and enjoy the comforts of the
city for a while. We took a cab to the
lot where our truck was stored and were met by a three-foot pile of snow that
had been plowed directly in the way of our front wheels.
“I thought
they said they would make sure it was clear for us before we got here,” Myra
said as I dug like a gopher without a shovel.
I broke
somewhat of a path, had everyone stand back, put the truck in four low and
powered through. We shopped, saw
Christmas lights, waded through currents of people in Fred Meyers and then
checked into the Extended Stay, plugging in the truck as the mercury dropped to
-35.
The next
day I went to the parking lot to fire up the truck and make the cab more
hospitable for my girls.
Click,
click, click, click.
“Huh,” I
said to only myself, “that’s not good.”
Another dad
who had gone to the parking lot on the same mission saw my predicament and
offered a jump.
Click,
click, click, click.
“Sorry,
buddy, but I’m guessing it’s not the battery,” he said as he turned the collar
up on his coat.
I pulled a
hammer I stored in the cab for building crates for shipping on barges during
the summer months, shimmied under the truck and gave a couple of gentle taps on
the starter only to be met by the same clicking.
A quick
walk to Fred’s for a cheap socket set, and I was under the hood looking for the
solenoid. I was afraid of my starter
being brittle when struck by the hammer and now I was standing in the cold
taking apart plastic covers to expose wires welded in place by the frigid
temperatures.
A couple
hours later, and I dialed the phone with cold, nearly useless fingers for a tow
to Sunshine Rays where I would happily pay people to work on the truck in a
warm environment better on my body and the truck’s workings.
Ray, or
maybe it was Sunshine, had the truck back together after replacing a solenoid
and starter, and we were able to pick it up on the 23rd. We had no intentions of staying in town this
close to Christmas, but there we were.
RAVN
thankfully had seats on the Christmas Eve afternoon flight back to Galena, and
the plane touched down just as it was getting dark. No real time to prepare our normal Christmas
Eve foods, we ate what would we could find.
So, though
not ideal, the extra couple of days had pushed us to the last minute to get our
tree.
“That’s the
one,” I said as we stepped up to what could only be described as Charlie
Brown’s ideal tree.
“Uh, are
you sure?” Romay questioned as this tree fell definitely short of what Mom’s
normal standard was.
Myra looked
at her watch, “Ten to midnight,” she stated, “this one looks about perfect.”
The trunk
couldn’t have been more than three inches in diameter as I quickly drew the saw
across it and dropped the tree unceremoniously to the snow.
The three
of us high-kneed it back to the house, stuck the tree in the stand, tightened
down the screws as far as they would go, threw one strand of lights on it, and
stood back to admire the first Christmas tree ever to go up in our new house.
“Um,” was
Romay’s stunned word, her expression telling much more than she was
verbalizing.
“Well, I’ve
seen worse,” I consoled her.
Myra looked
back at her watch, “Ten after twelve, merry Christmas, I’m going to bed.”
It was
probably the worst tree we had ever had up in our home, but this one was in a
house that was ours, built with our hands, paid in full, with a woodstove that
kept us toasty warm. The daughter is
grown and on her own, the house is sold and we have moved on, but that tree and
how we got it still makes it one of my favorites.
Our tree
this year is full, sturdy, strong, and beautiful. I’m not saying I will forget this year’s
tree, but in ten years, that scraggly, little humble tree will still be a clear
picture in my mind.
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| Christmas Tree 2019 in Unalakleet... slightly more full than Christams Tree 2010 in Galena. Merry Christmas |
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