Mom's Birthday Candle

My mother was born on December 14^th 1918. One Saturday morning in early December 1961 my 7 year-old sister and I decided we needed to buy my mother a birthday present. We asked my mom for some money to buy her a gift and she reluctantly gave us $3 or $4. As luck would have it, my father had planned to do some Christmas shopping that day at Lazarus Department Store, located in downtown Columbus. With money in hand, my sister and I went along.

At the Lazarus front doors, we kids split up from my dad, promising to meet him later at some predetermined location. Over the next half hour or so the two of us explored a number of different store departments in search of the perfect birthday present for my mom. We looked at baseball gloves, ballet slippers, even cheap cuckoo clocks, but we found nothing that we both thought my mother would like. Then, like a miracle, my sister and I came upon an approximately four foot-tall, electric Christmas candle made of heavy-duty plastic. Down the side of the candle in big yellow letters was the word NOEL. We just knew my mother would love it.

We hid the candle in the garage until we could wrap it, complete with stick-on bow. A few days later, on my mother’s birthday, we presented her with our fabulous gift. To our utter shock, frustration surfaced upon my mom’s face the instant the candle was wrestled free of the wrapping paper. “This is not an appropriate gift for someone’s birthday,” she grumbled. She then pushed it away as she shook her head in agitation. I remember it like it was yesterday. My sister and I were crestfallen.

Over the years the candle became known as “Mom’s Birthday Candle”. It was never referred to as “The Christmas Candle”, or “The Noel Candle”. Never. The oversized candle with the light bulb inside the big, yellow, plastic flame was simply “Mom’s Birthday Candle”. And every Christmas for almost 50 years it could be found brightening my Mom’s porch. Now and then over the various holiday seasons my mother would journey outside to wipe off the candle with a rag, or replace a burned-out light bulb. And if the weather turned really foul, she would bring the candle inside to safety.

One December several years ago, a few months before my mother died, I was carrying the candle through the living room, bound for the front porch. Along the way I traveled by my mother as she relaxed in her favorite chair. “Time to set-out your birthday candle,” I said casually.

“I remember the first time I saw that candle,” my mother quietly stated. “I was angry.”

I stopped and turned towards her. “Yeah, I remember. Believe me, I remember.”

“It wasn’t just that you bought me a big, plastic candle, it’s that you used my money to buy it.”

“It was a dumb gift,” I admitted with a shrug and a grin.

“At first I thought it was the stupidest gift in the world,” my mother remarked, “but I’ve received a lot of birthday presents in my life, and the truth is, very few have come to mean more to me than that big candle. So maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t such a stupid gift after all.”

Mom, wherever you are, I just want you to know; this holiday season your birthday candle will be glowing.

My Old West

In about a month or so I’ll be flying to Las Vegas. I’m starting to make reservations and so forth. I’ll spend a day or two in Vegas and then travel around that general region of the country for about a week. I’ll go to Death Valley, which is great in the wintertime, and visit other assorted sites in the region. Other than an evening or so of gambling in Vegas, I would be uninterested in going out west if I had not grown up on various TV Westerns.

As a kid I watched all the TV western shows, and there were a lot of them; The Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, and Maverick to name just a few. I watched The Roy Rogers Show too, but I did not enjoy that program as much as some of the others. First, I did not like the way Roy dressed. He was just too immaculate to be a real cowboy. He wore those beautiful, fancy, unscuffed boots. Tucked into the boots were the leg bottoms of a pair of somewhat effeminate, tight, stretch pants. His shirts would make Liberace proud. They were way too colorful and fancy, and they were often adored with this girly leather fringe. Around Roy’s neck could be found a kerchief. Although I was watching Roy in black and white, I had this strange feeling that the kerchief was some shade of lavender. His hat was painfully impeccable.

I remember one early episode where in the finale Roy rode his “golden palomino” Trigger across the countryside in pursuit of a horseback bank robber. When Roy finally captured and subdued the robber after firing a couple of shots from his way-too-shiny sixgun, the town sheriff arrived driving something like a ’52 Dodge DeSoto. Up to the moment the sheriff came on the scene there was nary an indication that the story was taking place in the mid-20^th Century, if it in fact was. I mean, maybe it was a sci-fi episode with the sheriff and his automobile arriving from the future via a time machine. When these inconsistencies happened -and I was to learn that they often did on that show- I always assumed that Roy was simply way behind the times and had refused to mess with automobile technology, opting instead for the old-fashion horse. Thirty years later my father unknowingly supported this theory with his refusal to acknowledge the advent of the computer.

Anyway, despite my opinion of Roy, I’m going to be heading to the West, if not exactly the Old West. In order to follow the correct trail, I’ll be hooking up my GPS to a rented car with heated seats and cruise control. I’m sure that all these highfalutin gizmos will have Roy turning over in his grave. Okay Roy, I might be a tenderfoot, but at least I’m not afraid of get a little dirt on my pants. And by the way, those will be men's pants. 

Run Silent, Run Deep

Yesterday I watched a movie on TV titled Run Silent, Run Deep, a WWII submarine movie. The film was released in 1958 and starred Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster. I have seen the movie about three or four times in my life. I first saw it in 1958 with my father. I was 7 years-old at the time. We went to a theater in downtown Columbus, Ohio to view it. I’m not sure which particular theater however. There were about four of them in operation in downtown Columbus at the time.

Truth is; I remember nothing more than seeing the movie in a big, downtown theater with my dad in the seat next to me. I don’t remember if I had popcorn, or a soda. My father was one cheap guy but I’m going to guess that if he was going to take the trouble to take the two of us to a downtown movie theater to see a movie, he would be willing to spring for popcorn. He might have even coughed up the money for a Coke for me.

My father and I never did much together when I was a boy growing up. We never played catch nor did he shoot hoops with me on our driveway basketball court. I don’t think he ever helped me with my homework. But we went to a couple of Jets minor league baseball games, and four movies. As a family we went to perhaps a dozen or so flicks, but as for just my father and I, there were a total of four. I remember the names of each. The last one was in 1967, The Blue Max. It featured the sultry Ursula Andress, and the film had some adult themes, even some partial nudity. I was 16 then and consequently was very entertained. I’m sure my dad was entertained too.

I wish I could tell my father that I not only just saw Run Silent, Run Deep on television, but that I remember him and me seeing it at the theater 54 years ago. But my father died over 20 years ago, so I can’t. But I know what my father would say. He would look at me for a few seconds, murmur something like “Really? Huh,” and then in an indifferent manner, state that he couldn’t really remember. Ironically, my father did not run silent, run deep, especially in matters of retrospection.

It might seem kind of odd, but there is something mildly amusing about having a sudden desire to tell a departed love one something, something that would not in any way interest that deceased person. But the reality is; I know that my father simply would not care about the activities of one isolated evening in 1958.

I can only reassure myself with the belief that we both liked the movie all those years ago. And I'm pretty sure we did.   

Bob Is Forever Young

Earlier today I mentioned the actor James Dean to a friend during conversation. I brought up Dean’s name because he died at the age of 24 years-old. All of Dean’s work came in the last two years of his short life. The world knows James Dean only as a young, good-looking guy. There is no “older” James Dean with a potbelly. There exists no silly-looking police mugshot of a drunken, middle-aged James Dean.

Anyway, after I brought up James Dean, I began thinking about Bob MacLeod. Bob sat right next to me in Mr. Whipkey’s 9^th grade homeroom. I think Bob died when he was 14 years old, about 47 years ago. He died in a go-cart accident while speeding around a parking lot. It was a gruesome freak accident and I will not go into the details.      

A lot of the people who were classmates of Bob then, vaguely remember Bob today. Many of them remember an accident, but forget the victim's name. Bob was short, blond, and had an unusually deep voice for a kid. Bob did not have a perfect skin complexion, a curse cast upon many a 14 year-old. I can still picture the guy. I can still hear his voice.

One Saturday evening Bob had a party at his parent’s house. It was not a wild party, Bob’s parent’s chaperoned. I think it might have been a birthday party. I believe he invited everyone in the class, even the girls. A dozen or so attended. I do not remember spending a boring night in the MacLeod basement, so the party was probably a success.   

But Bob was not a perfect 14 year-old boy. Once or twice he would get into an argument over something petty, and he would actually get angry and raise his voice. When I was on the other side of one of these debates, I would become uncomfortable with Bob’s intensity and back out of the discussion. When I was witnessing the argument, I would be amused. But Bob had a sense of humor too. He would laugh if he heard something funny, including a body noise, even one he created.

Bob is like James Dean in that his gray-haired years never came to pass. He will always be young. As romantic as that might sound, it is of course a curse. I’m sure that both Bob, and James Dean, would have preferred to live to at least 60. As a guy who has now lived beyond 60, I can attest that living an additional 40 or 50 years is preferred to be remembered as forever young. And besides, Bob may have eclipsed the achievements of all of his classmates and become President. He may have even been my life-long friend. Heck, in a sense he is anyway.     

A Friendly, Non-Murdering Recluse

I’m a 61 year-old guy, and something of a recluse. Since the age of 21 or so I’ve almost continuously been in an adult relationship with one woman or another, but I’ve always lived alone, more or less. Usually (but not always) it has been I who has insisted on that living arrangement. When it comes to living my life, I am not a traditionalist. I’ve always made it a point to inform a prospective lady right up front that I am perfectly willing to be in a committed relationship, but I am not going to want to get married and start a family, and I will probably want my own residence. These ground rules have ended a number of relationships almost before they have started. But that’s okay. That’s why I am upfront about it. I don’t want to lead anyone on. I don’t want some sweet, unsuspecting lady to waste her time on me.

I don’t mind being by myself for hours, and even days on end. A coworker’s wife recently had reason to be out of town for a few days. My coworker told me that he missed her being around the house, and couldn’t wait for her return. I’m not quite that way. In fact, I won’t answer the front door simply because someone knocks. If I’m near the door, I’ll look through the peekhole. If I don’t recognize the visitor, I will not open the door.

Ted Kaczynski, perhaps better known as the Unabomber, was an Olympic-level recluse. He lived alone in some backwoods shack and used to go into town only when he needed supplies. I wonder how Ted interacted with people on those rare occasions. Was he polite? Was he a personable guy? Did he joke with strangers? My guess is that Ted was neither polite nor personable. I doubt that he displayed a sense of humor around others.

Sometimes I won’t leave my condo for two straight days and then I’ll decide to go to the grocery store. I’ve been known to jovially unload a shopping cart for an old lady in the parking lot on my way into the store. I will casually banter with store employees and customers while in the store. I enjoy being alone, but I like people too. Maybe I like people as much as I do because I don’t overdose on them. I don’t know, it’s just a theory.

Anyway, the point to all this is; if there’s some old guy living next door, and he keeps to himself, he almost assuredly is not a murderer or child molester. In fact, he might not even be a grouch. Personally, I would assume that he is probably a decent guy. I mean, look at Santa Claus; he is a recluse 364 days out of the year.