It’s always wonderful to get presents. Not just on birthdays and Christmas, but any time. The most wonderful day of the year, when I was a boy, was Christmas. My three sisters, two brothers and I would go to sleep on the night before Christmas with visions of … well, you know what I mean.
That was during the 1929 Depression years that most of us older Americans remember. It was a time that lasted almost until World War II. The ‘30s were the hard years and nearly everybody had to scratch to keep body and soul together. Our family was as poor as the rest but, living on a farm and growing our own food, we didn’t know we were poor.
We lived in the country. It was worse for people who lived in the cities. No one had Social Security and vets of the First World War were selling apples on corners in the city or standing in breadlines for a handout.
I was the oldest of six kids. I understood, better than most, how hard it was for Mama and Papa to keep us fed and in clothes and shoes. They managed somehow. Papa spoke pretty good English but at home I picked up some Italian when our relatives came to visit.
Papa was one of the lucky ones. He had a job at Packard Motors in Detroit. They must have thought well of him at the factory to keep him employed all through the Depression. I know how hard he worked because each night, after he walked home a mile over the icy gravel road in winter to our house from where the bus let him off, and before he washed up for our supper, I remember he smelled like sweat, grease and iron.
On Christmas morning we always got some kind of present and we always had a tree. When I was 10 my present was my first bike. It was a big, black (repainted), balloon-tired Monarch of ancient vintage. My mother and father bought it from a thrift shop and it rode just fine. I used it to service my 50 customers for the Detroit News on my first paper route.
What little I earned, at a penny a paper, went to the family but still left me enough to buy a BBbat sucker or a Guess What package for a penny at Tripodi’s Grocery, the halfway mark on my five-mile paper route.
The other day, when I went out to walk down the hill to get my Record-Bee from the box on the road, I had that same grand feeling all over again, Two gifts had been left for me on the porch. It wasn’t Christmas and the givers were not exactly a human but it was nice to know someone cared enough to give me a gift.
I will admit when I saw my two gifts my feelings were mixed because of what the gifts were. One was a small gray mouse laying just outside my front door. The second gift was also a mouse but it was fatter. That gift lay in front of my sliding glass door that leads into my bedroom office where I do all my writing.
The givers were my two cats.
The mouse gift at my front door had been left for me by my outdoor cat, Calico Number Two. You may recall, Calico Two replaced Calico One who died. I feed her kibbles and leave a box house next to my front door so when winter comes she won’t be cold.
The second, fatter mouse was a present from Cleo, my indoor cat. I guess she thought I deserved a fatter mouse because she is my house cat and she sleeps anywhere in the house she likes.
My front door is next to Calico Two’s bed and Cleo refuses to use that door. Cleo considers that door belongs to Calico Two. My fat gift mouse was left at my sliding glass bedroom door because that door Cleo claims for her own.
Since I am lucky enough to have two cats who love me, Christmas, for me, comes more than one time a year.
