The Christmas season always brings me to a nostalgic high. I think back to days long gone when my parents dragged us, often kicking and screaming for Sunday visits to the grandparents place. Back then it was torture - that is until the moment we walked into Grandpa Clarke's and Grandma (O'Rourke's) house in the West end.
And this Christmas, with the recent loss of my Uncle and my wife's Aunt and my sisters father-in-law I became more nostalgic than usual.
All this sums up why I decided to write a Blog.
Any of you who know me well, know I have always been a fairly outspoken person, never shy to voice my opinion, right or wrong (more often the latter), but many people, with whom I have an acquaintance of sorts, have no idea what my life has become, where I went, what I did.
Now, while I'm not really that important a person in the grand scheme of things, and I'll never likely write the ending to the "Unfinished Symphony", I do feel the need to share my opinions, stories, and experiences with anyone who cares to read.
Thankfully, I won't be doing all that in this blog....
But seeing as how it's Christmas, I thought I would share a rather humorous anecdote from a Christmas time in my past.
It was in mid-December, a week or so before Christmas in 1966 and the Drive in theatre in the east end of Ottawa was showing a special pre-Christmas re-release of the 1956 movie "The 10 Commandments". My parents thought it would be a great idea for us to learn about the bible and enjoy ourselves at the same time. So we were all put into our PJ's and herded into the back seat of Dad's Oldsmobile.
Our parents always put us in our Pajamas when heading out to evening events, as it made getting us into bed all the easier when we returned home, or when we inevitable fell asleep in the car!
This time, we were all a little overwhelmed - there would be no sleeping tonight! A week before Christmas! A drive-in movie! A bag of popcorn! The world could not get any better! Well needless to say a bunch of little kids, all wound up in the back seat of a car with no seat-belts to hold us back was just what my parents needed late at night.
After what seemed like a 4 hour drive to Toronto, (more likely about 25 minutes to the East-end) and a lot of giggling and bouncing around, we arrived, and took our spot. It was snowing lightly, so the movie had a secondary orchestra with the 'thump, thump, thump' of the wiper blades, but it only added to the overall charisma of the event.
Needless to say, the movie was so surreal we barely uttered a word and by the end of the movie, we were all certain that if we misbehaved (like those Egyptians), God would surely hurl locusts into the back seat of our car on the way home. I think, perhaps, something my Mother might have said had something to do with that thinking!
On the way home, the snow started to get a little heavier and the drive seemed to become a little like the 'parting of the white snow', making the urge to be quiet all the more prevalent in our minds. My brother Terry and I had been whispering about the movie and what things God (and Mom) could do to us if we were bad. A few miles before home, after turning off the highway onto the off ramp, I felt a cold draft on my right side. When I looked to that side, the rear car door was wide open. Of course I reached over and closed it, and then it dawned on me... My sister Sharon wasn't in the car anymore!
With child-like innocence and a little nervous at whether the hand of God (or Mom) would reach back, I asked - rather sheepishly, "Where did Sharon go?"
Well thankfully there were no other cars on the road at the time. Sharon's nightgown had gotten stuck in the door at the drive in (when she went to the washroom I assume), and when we turned the corner the door opened and she fell out into the snowbank.
Well thankfully Dad rescued her and all was well.
Naturally you would think that Terry and I were grateful our sister was safe and sound, and we were. However, I felt the compulsion to whisper to her (upon her safe return) that we had been told to be quiet, and she had made me speak rather loudly. So she had better not fall out of the car again! "Terry and I want our Christmas presents from Santa, so be quiet and no more falling out of the car... okay?" I think - was how I put it.
My Father, God bless his soul, has since passed on, any gifts we may have received that Christmas are all but forgotten, and that old Olds-mobile has likely been recycled many times over, but the memories of past Christmases and events still live on.
I learned from this that events and memories can make us happy, long after gifts are gone and forgotten.
God Bless
-Colin
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