Use the form on the right to contact us.
You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right.
PO Box 3201
Martinsville, VA 24115
United States
Stephen H. Provost is an author of paranormal adventures and historical non-fiction. “Memortality” is his debut novel on Pace Press, set for release Feb. 1, 2017.
An editor and columnist with more than 30 years of experience as a journalist, he has written on subjects as diverse as history, religion, politics and language and has served as an editor for fiction and non-fiction projects. His book “Fresno Growing Up,” a history of Fresno, California, during the postwar years, is available on Craven Street Books. His next non-fiction work, “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street,” is scheduled for release in June.
For the past two years, the editor has served as managing editor for an award-winning weekly, The Cambrian, and is also a columnist for The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.
He lives on the California coast with his wife, stepson and cats Tyrion Fluffybutt and Allie Twinkletail.
Ruminations and provocations.
Filtering by Category: History
Somehow the American talent for innovation that gave us the airplane and the personal computer, that invented the telephone and put a man on the moon, has failed spectacularly in its most basic test: improving the way we treat our fellow human beings. Especially those we perceive as different.
Read MoreWe Americans have a selective memory. And we trust labels over facts.
Anyone who doubts this only has to look at two words: Infrastructure and healthcare. Infrastructure is supposed to be something that “everyone agrees on.” Who doesn’t want better roads? And who has a problem with the government paying for them?
We view good highways as a human right. Healthcare? Not so much.
But it wasn’t always this way. There was a time, back in the late 1800s, when our roads were in terrible shape. If you wanted to use yesterday’s highways, you had to depend on private businesses to surface and maintain them.
Why would businesses want to do that? The only ones with any incentive were merchants, and manufacturers who needed them to distribute goods. Naturally, the roads used by these merchants and manufacturers were in decent shape. The rest of them were barely passable – if at all. If those businesses weren’t on a direct route, tough luck. You, the ordinary traveler, had to go out of your way to be sure they were getting their money’s worth.
Sometimes, a long way out of your way. Halfway decent roads back then were a maze of twists and turns and double-backs.
The private businesses that forced everyone to go out of their way weren’t in it as a public service. Like today’s insurance companies and drug makers, they wanted to make money. If travelers happened to benefit, that was fine. If they were inconvenienced or got stuck in the mud, that was fine, too. It didn’t matter to them.
If you like the fact that today’s roads aren’t a bunch of rutted, muddy dirt trails, you’ve got the bicycle to thank for it.
Cyclists back in the late 1800s weren’t happy about the sorry state of the nation’s roads, so pressed for legislators to dedicate more money to improve what we now call “infrastructure.”
The prospect was expensive. The federal government resisted setting aside money for highways, preferring to kick the can back up the (dirt) road to states, counties and those private businesses.
But the movement picked up steam once farmers joined the cyclists in calling for better roads.
One cycling activist, Isaac Potter, published a plea to farmers detailing the cost of bad roads to their bottom line: He put it at $2.35 billion, which would translate to about $56 billion today – pretty close to Michael Bloomberg’s net worth.
Wagons broke down as a matter of routine; sometimes people were hurt or even killed.
Potter made another point, too: Roads in places like France, Belgium and Italy were well maintained – even country roads. The condition of these foreign roads stood in marked contrast to the terrible shape American highways were in. One early road advocate ranked them alongside Turkey’s roads as the worst in the world.
This was all back around 1900.
Flash forward to today, and the arguments on healthcare are eerily similar. Poor healthcare coverage costs the American economy billions of dollars in lost productivity. When people go bankrupt to pay obscene medical bills, it kills consumer spending: They’re no longer fueling the economy by spending on things like cars and Christmas gifts. And that’s not even mentioning the real price: People without health care suffer. They die. They leave loved ones behind who don’t know what they’ll ever do without them.
More than 100 years ago, other countries were building and maintaining roads while the United States was doing neither. Today, other countries are treating and curing patients, while the United States is – that’s right – doing neither.
Back then, Americans responded. Starting in the 1920s, the federal government began kicking in serious money to build and maintain the nation’s highways. As part of that, the feds got to decide where the new highways went.
That didn’t sit too well with the merchants and manufacturers who had controlled where roads were built up to that point. They didn’t like the government deciding to bypass their businesses for the good of those who actually needed to use the road. They did everything they could to stop it from happening.
But they failed.
Today, drug companies and insurers won’t like being bypassed, either. Not for the sake of the people who need to use healthcare. Not for any reason. That’s why they’re fighting the idea of universal healthcare tooth and nail.
We’re all used to government funds paying for our roads. We don’t remember what it’s like before they did. Today, we view good roads as a human right. If we don’t have them, we get mad at the government and demand them. We don’t remember what it was like before the government paid for them, because we weren’t around then.
If we did remember, though, we’d realize it was exactly what it’s like now with healthcare. Other countries provide it; ours doesn’t. Other countries are saving money because they’re willing to invest in something worthwhile. Something noble. We’re not.
If you want to dismiss universal healthcare as “socialism,” you’ll have to dismiss the federal road system, too.
But maybe we should flip things around and look at it the opposite way. What if we started viewing healthcare as human infrastructure? Without it, our society will break down, just as wagons broke down on those muddy, potholed 19th century roads. Our economy will suffer. People will die, too – and a lot more of them.
History forgotten is hypocrisy unleashed.
The history of our highways holds lessons for today’s healthcare crisis. It’s time we start listening and doing something to save the human infrastructure that’s crumbling right before our eyes.
Last year, I went on a “bucket list” tour of the Lincoln Highway, Route 66 and other highways across the country while compiling information for my latest book, Yesterday’s Highways. It reminded me of a lot of things I missed — highway sights and experiences from my youth that are just no longer there. So, I decided to compile a list. Here are my top 10:
The Sunset Drive-In in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Drive-ins are largely at thing of the past. At their peak, more than 4,000 such theaters dotted the landscape; today, there are barely 300 (The Sunset in San Luis Obispo, pictured at top, is one of them). Many of them made their home along the highway, close enough to town for easy access, but far enough away to keep the bright lights and revving engines away from quiet neighborhoods. Some drew attention to themselves with huge neon-lit murals on the back of their screens, where giant horses reared up in San Pedro and Van Nuys, and sailboats plied the ocean waves in Lakewood (all in California and all, sadly, gone today).
A juice stand, no longer serving juice, in Chowchilla, Calif.
I grew up on Highway 99 in California, and whenever I’d head north, I’d pass something called the Mammoth Orange in Fairmead, near Chowchilla. It was a juice stand under a giant canopy that also served “Alaska-sized” burgers. There was one at the southbound exit that, at some point, got painted blue and white with little stars and a red stripe. It was called Fast Eddie’s and got torn down in the 1990s. The stand off northbound 99 lasted a little longer, until a new interchange forced its removal in the middle of the next decade. Fresno radio personality Dean Opperman even recorded a song about it, as his alter-ego, Bobby Volare.
A Howard Johnson’s postcard touts its 28 flavors of ice cream.
At one point, HoJo seemed like it was everywhere. The roadside restaurant-diner-coffee shop started out as a Massachusetts ice cream stand serving 28 flavors back in the 1920s, and within a half-century, it was the nation’s largest restaurant chain. It had motels, next door, too. The chain exploded in the 1940s when it won contracts to build locations every 50 miles or so along eastern turnpikes. Everyone recognized its orange roofs, weathervanes and “Simple Simon and the Pieman” logo. But by the 2010s, the chain had been reduced to a single location, in Lake George, N.Y.
An old-style International House of Pancakes building in Burbank, Calif.
Yes, this chain is still around, but somehow, it’s just not the same. Who can forget the days when it wasn’t called IHOP, and when it wasn’t just another boxy restaurant? The earliest International House of Pancakes locations were housed in steeply gabled A-frame buildings with Tudor-style siding and a replica gas lamp on the sign out front. The chain really did go for an international flavor back then, offering menu items like Maine Blueberry Pancakes, Viennese Potato Pancakes, Brazilian Banana Pancakes and Tropical Tahitian Pancakes. Ah, those were the days!
Sprague’s Super Service on Route 66 has been restored but no longer sells gas.
There was a time when service stations really did offer service! When you pulled in, you’d hear a double bell go “ding-ding,” and an attendant in a spiffy (sometimes in a cap and bowtie) would come out and pump your gas for you. Not only that, he’d check your tires and your oil, wipe your windshield for you, and give you a free map of the area if you needed directions. Phillips 66 even enlisted former nurses to make the rounds to be sure its restrooms were clean. The era of full service went out the window for the most part in the 1970s with the Arab oil embargo, but a few places, like Oregon, continued to put the “full” in “full service.”
Mom’s Cafe in Utah.
Long before Starbucks was charging $4 or $5 for a designer cup of coffee, roadside cafés were keeping motorists and truckers awake with coffee for a quarter. Or a nickel. Back in 1977, Perry’s Chuck Wagon on Highway 99 ran a special charging a nickel for a cup of java (the regular price was just 20 cents). It was my parents’ regular stop between our home in Fresno and my grandparents’ place in Southern California, and we’d always pick up a sandwich and a slice of pie there. Unfortunately, the small chain went out of business, along with many other mom-and-pop roadside coffeehouses.
A bovine statue stands guard over a road in Winston-Salem, N.C.
Once upon a time, roadside architects put an emphasis on the creative. An ice cream stand might be shaped like and cone, or a root beer place like a mug of root beer. There was a chain of seven motor inns called Wigwam Villages, stretching from Kentucky to the West Coast, where you could spend the night in a replica wigwam. Giant “muffler men” like the Gemini Giant in Illinois and Big Chip in Pennsylvania guarded the side of the road, along with their female counterparts, the Uniroyal Gals. Attractions like the Blue Whale of Catoosa on Route 66 gave kids a break from the long, monotonous drive. Most of them are gone now, but a few are still there, remnants of an age when crazy was cool and creativity stole the show.
Valentine Diner at the Route 66 museum.
Yes, they still have diners, but most of them aren’t what they once were: long, rectangular prefab buildings that looked like rail cars because they were built at a factory and transported to their ultimate destination... yes, on rail cars! One manufacturer, Valentine Diners, sold small, boxy buildings for $5,000 a pop (or monthly payments of just $40). With just 8-10 stools, they were easy — and cheap — to operate with just a waiter and a cook. It’s no wonder so many of them popped up along the nation’s highways in the middle of the 20th century.
The Blue Whale of Catoosa on Route 66 in Oklahoma.
Before Disneyesque super-sized theme parks, smaller roadside attractions dotted the highway, such as the aforementioned Blue Whale of Catoosa and an animal park behind Pea Soup Andersen’s restaurant on Highway 101 in Buellton, Calif., which operated around 1970. There was Santa Claus Lane in Santa Barbara, where giant statues of Santa (poking his head out of a chimney) and Frosty the Snowman held forth, overseeing a line of Christmas-themed shops and restaurants along the California Coast. They’re all gone now, but the street is still called Santa Claus Lane. One of my favorites was Lion Country Safari in Irvine, Calif., where you could drive a jeep through the park and gaze at African-wildlife like zebras and, of course, lions. Unfortunately, it closed in 1984.
Old Motel Drive in Fresno, Calif., is now just a memory.
You knew you were coming up on a new town when you saw the glow of neon lights up ahead. Once upon a time, motels owners built neon gateways to many towns, offering travelers a place to bed down for the night. They were like miniature versions of Vegas, and they provided a template on which the Nevada gaming capital built its empire. But as new interstates bypassed old highways, those neon gateways lost their luster. The motels that once seemed so glamorous were torn down or forgotten, converted into apartments or seedy, low-rent shadows of their former selves. The neon went dark, turning out the lights on the golden era of America’s highways.
“The spirit of 1776 is not dead. It has only been slumbering. The body of the American people is substantially republican. But their virtuous feelings have been played on by some fact with more fiction; they have been the dupes of artful manoeuvres, and made for a moment to be willing instruments in forging chains for themselves.” – Thomas Jefferson
The two-party system is broken. Perhaps it was inevitable.
What’s amazing is that it’s taken us almost 250 years to reach this point. Actually, though, we’ve been here before. It pushed us to the brink during Vietnam and Watergate, and over the edge during the Civil War.
And now, here we stand once again, staring into the abyss of the chasm between us.
Because we’re divided. In two. And we hesitate to lay the blame where it belongs: squarely at the feet of an inherently toxic two-party system. We hesitate because this system has become so deeply ingrained in our political reality that we view it as an essential part of our culture. But it’s not essential. In fact, quite the opposite. It’s nowhere in the Constitution, and John Adams even warned that it was the Constitution’s worst enemy.
Said Adams: “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
Thomas Jefferson, who was Adams’ rival in this emerging two-party system, agreed: “The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions, and make them one people.”
These two brilliant, gifted and esteemed rivals agreed, yet they couldn’t stop it. So now, it’s up to us.
Why is the two-party system, in Adams’ view, “evil”? Because it encourages binary choices. Such choices leave no room for nuance or subtlety, and they create an atmosphere where extremism can thrive. Where we vote a party line, either because we’re too lazy to think for ourselves, or because the choices are so extreme – and we find one of them so unpalatable – there seems to be only one viable option.
Why does it seem worse now?
Because we’ve added unlimited money and endless propaganda, disguised as free speech, to the equation. And that’s a recipe for disaster.
Unlimited money is available via unrestrained campaign contributions. Propaganda is spread more quickly and effectively than ever – through conventional media saturation, social media pressures and election cycles that never end.
We’ve come to this place by accepting the lie that free speech is somehow absolute. Of course, it’s not. You’re not supposed to be able to slander someone, to perjure yourself in court, to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, to willfully incite others to violence ... No right is absolute. But a binary system encourages the belief in absolutes, even in the face of common sense, so is it any surprise that we’ve started interpreting free speech in those terms.
What’s worse is we’ve created a vicious circle. Not only does our binary system strengthen a false belief in absolutes. This belief, in turn, encourages us to think in binary terms. “I’m right, you’re wrong” – regardless of the facts behind the argument. Ad hominem fallacies become the rule of the day: The identity of the person doing the arguing becomes more important than the merits of the argument itself. This is why political parties in a two-party system, and their leaders, cast aside “bedrock principles” at the drop of a hat for the sake of winning.
The party that once believed in free trade becomes protectionist. The party that once encouraged slavery wants to consider reparations for slavery. The party that once railed against incurring debt runs up the biggest debt in history. The party that organized provocative protests on college campuses wants “safe spaces” on those same campuses to insulate people from provocation. These aren’t subtle shifts in ideology. They’re 180-degree turnabouts, and they often take place abruptly – over a few short years, not decades.
This isn’t how thinking people act to new information presented in a marketplace of ideas. It’s how people react to peer pressure in a binary system where the “marketplace” consists of just two vendors. These two share a mutually parasitic monopoly on ideas, each of them selling only absolutes that condemn the other, but each needing the other to serve as a scapegoat.
In a world of absolutes, there’s no room for agreement. There’s only us and them. Winning and losing. But this world of absolutes is not the world we live in.
Yes, we have our differences. Thomas Jefferson said, “Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth.” But, alas, this concept is being lost, due to the false binary choices being foisted on us in the current environment. Difference of opinion is no longer an opportunity to learn, but an excuse to attack and defend. It’s no longer a reason to discuss, but a reason to condemn.
Binary systems emphasize what we don’t like about each other – and encourage us to like it even less. And all this angst and fury does something else, as well: It obscures the fact that we actually agree on most of the important stuff. This is, I believe, the greatest tragedy that’s been foisted on us by our binary political system. Because the truth of the matter is, we actually agree on most things.
We believe in the Golden Rule, or some variation of it.
We believe in equal opportunity and equal treatment under the law.
We don’t want our environment poisoned.
We don’t want to die because we can’t afford medicine or a hospital stay.
We preferred the late 20th century employment model to the “shareholder is god, employee is dirt” construct.
We believe in education.
We believe in “live and let live” within the law.
We believe success should be based on merit, not on gaming the system.
We believe in taking care of our own.
We believe hard work should be rewarded, and those who can’t work should have help – but that those who lie about being unable to work shouldn’t get it.
We believe in science, and we believe there’s something more out there that we don’t and maybe can’t understand.
In all these things, we are united. E pluribus unum: Out of many, one. Many people. Many ideas. Many approaches.
We still are the UNITED States of America. Those who feed (and get rich) off our toxic binary system want us to forget this. They don’t want us to focus on the many things that unite us, but on the few that divide us.
Expletive for emphasis: Fuck that.
It’s time for us to remind them who’s in charge in a democratic republic. It’s time for us not only to take back our country, but to recover our soul.
I told myself I wasn’t going to blog about politics again for a while, but since I didn’t tell anyone else (until now), I’m safe, right?
Even if I’m not, I don’t care, because this Electoral College thing is really sticking in my craw – and not because of how it affected the current election. That’s over and done with, but the E.C. is still with us, enshrined in the very Constitution it contradicts (more on that later) and giving rural voters a built-in advantage over those of us in big states and big cities.
I live in one of those big states: California. And the most common argument I hear in favor of the E.C. runs something like this: “We wouldn’t want those people in California deciding the next president, would we?”
Being one of “those people,” I take offense.
Oh, sure, it’s fine the give tiny Vermont and Iowa an outsized say in who gets nominated. Aren’t they cute little states? Don’t they just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside? But if, as a Californian, I object that my general election ballot is worth less than half a Wyoming voter’s vote, I’m a big bad bully.
For comparison’s sake, imagine that each vote cast in Alice Springs, a town of 27,000 in Australia’s central desert, was worth more than a ballot filled out in Sydney, where 21% of the country’s people. Or that a vote in northern Russia was counted more heavily than one cast in Moscow (assuming Putinland had a functioning democracy) just because Siberia covers 77 percent of that nation’s land area.
Unfair is unfair, no matter where you happen to live. And we’re talking about the United States, here, the self-described beacon of democratic freedom.
It can be argued the E.C. was never about democracy. Alexander Hamilton wrote that the Electoral College was meant to reflect “the sense of the people” while entrusting the actual selection to “men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances of favorable deliberation.” He wanted to make sure no one would ever become president unless he was “endowed with the requisite qualifications.”
But if that’s what the founders wanted, they don’t have it now. The modern Electoral College neither reflects “the sense of the people” nor does it allow for any analysis or deliberation. Many electors are compelled by law to vote for candidates based on the popular vote, eliminating any check against an unqualified candidate winning office while, at the same time, potentially forcing them to participate in the election of someone who doesn’t reflect the overall sense of the people.
So, the modern Electoral College is a failure on both counts.
What it does succeed in doing is thumbing its nose at the concept of one person, one vote: the principle of equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. The argument that it’s meant to reflect geographic influence only amplifies the problem. Geographic areas aren’t people, any more than corporations are, and granting them de facto voting rights makes about as much sense as scheduling a debate between Mount Lassen and Old Faithful.
Defenders of the E.C. try to explain that the Electoral College protects “rural America” from being buried under an avalanche of votes from the big cities. It preserves “geographic diversity,” they say – as though that’s the only kind of diversity that exists in this country. Never mind racial diversity, religious diversity, cultural diversity and so forth.
But wait. Say you want to try inflating the value of a person’s vote based on any of those factors. You can’t, because the 14th Amendment won’t let you. It was put in place expressly to prevent that from happening. Otherwise, there would be nothing to keep people in the majority from depriving African-Americans (or anybody else) of their right to vote, just because they happened to feel like it. The way the old South did.
Nothing, that is, except for the Electoral College. Under this system, votes in predominantly white rural areas do count more than votes from inner cities in densely populated states … where more African-Americans, Latinos and other minorities just happen to live.
Hmmmm.
This shouldn’t be a surprise, because the E.C. was created largely for the benefit of slave owners in Southern states who wouldn’t allow blacks to vote but also couldn’t stomach the idea of being badly outnumbered by free-state citizens in a straight popular vote. The Electoral College allowed them to have it both ways: They could count each slave as a fraction of a voter (three-fifths, to be exact) – even though those slaves didn’t actually vote. It was either ingenious or diabolical, depending on your point of view.
As James Madison put it: "The right of suffrage was much more diffusive (or widespread) in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes."
The Electoral College gave them that influence. Along with such contrivances as the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, it was designed to balance the interests of free and slave states, often by bending over backwards to placate the latter. Even so, the goal ultimately proved unattainable.
The house of cards came crashing down when the South seceded and started the Civil War. Then, when the North won, it granted African-Americans the right to vote and passed the 14th Amendment, enshrining the principle of one man, one vote in the Constitution. Everything that had been put in place to preserve the power of slave owners was swept aside.
Except the Electoral College, because it was already in the Constitution.
The E.C. remained in place even though it could no longer fulfill the purpose for which it was created: to help slave states. There no longer were any slave states. Or slaves. Just a bunch of pissed off former slaveholders who – despite the 14th Amendment – sought to keep blacks from voting by imposing things such as poll taxes, literacy tests and a host of other barriers later deemed to be unconstitutional.
Here’s the upshot: Thanks to its place in the Constitution, the E.C. not only outlived its relevance, it preserved a power structure designed to bolster slavery – which was, most people would agree, an inherently unfair social system.
Is it any surprise that the E.C. is itself inherently unfair?
Rooted in an era before equal protection, it preserves the very framework that propped up the antebellum South. It’s a living relic of the slavery era that still manages to accomplish what poll taxes and literacy tests cannot: maximizing the rural white vote – just as it was intended to do. The Electoral College isn’t about preserving geographic diversity, it’s about constraining the kind of racial and ethnic diversity one finds in urban areas of highly populated states.
Embedded in the Constitution, the E.C. flies in the face of the 14th Amendment – which is part of this very same document.
It’s all but immune to reform, because the Constitution designed to be difficult to change (even when it contradicts itself). We citizens only seem to question it when it doesn’t match the popular vote, and the people it raises to power in such circumstance have less incentive than anyone else to challenge it.
I’m not saying you are a racist if you defend the Electoral College. What I am saying is that it was created in part to perpetuate racial inequality, so we shouldn’t be surprised if it does so. You can be resigned to it or even argue for it, but please don’t pretend it’s either fair or democratic. Land masses don’t vote. Slaves couldn’t, either.
As for California, it never was a slave state, but it and other urban centers remain chained to a skewed system that was designed to perpetuate a slave culture.
The moral of the story: If we want to be a free society, we should damned well start acting like one.
I’m going to wade into the “war on Christmas,” but it’s not what you might expect.
I like Christmas, and I always have. In fact, it’s probably my favorite holiday. That’s no earth-shattering revelation, because millions of people like Christmas, and it’s almost certainly the most popular holiday on the calendar.
What is surprising, and a bit sad, is that so many people have become so concerned with why we like (or should like) Christmas.
One person’s reasons might not be the same as another’s, and that’s perfectly okay.
For me, it’s not for any religious or spiritual reason: I actually find the whole “war on Christmas” thing pretty tedious. If you want to be offended by “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays,” all I can ask is, “Aren’t there more important things in life?” I mean, seriously. We could always emulate the British and compromise with “Happy Christmas,” but isn't the whole point to give and receive good wishes, no matter what words we use?
Should we be forced to acknowledge that the pine tree in the living room or the yule log on the fire were borrowed from European paganism? Should we worry too much about the fact that a springtime birth for Jesus was far more likely, based on biblical accounts, or that a December date was likely chosen to correspond with the winter solstice? Should we be forced to give Santa the cold shoulder because he’s become an object of cultural affection that "should" be reserved for that babe in the manger?
(I have a hunch cold shoulders don’t work too well on someone who lives at the North Pole; maybe we should all just chill instead.)
Then, there’s the gift-giving. I don’t like Christmas for any love the commercialism or any desire to brave the Mongol hordes on Black Friday and bring home a flat-screen TV for half the normal sticker price. I like a good sale as much as the next person, but I don’t like traffic jams, long lines or commercial pitches. And I don’t like that unspoken pressure to buy something of a certain value just because I’m afraid the person on the receiving end of my gift might be giving me something more expensive.
A lot of people love Christmas because they spend it with family (and a lot of people who aren't on good terms with their families don’t love it for the same reason). Me? I’m the only son of an only son who passed away a few months ago. My mom’s been gone for more than 20 years, and I’m in touch with precisely one of my extended blood relatives, whom I haven’t seen in person for years. So, the “time with family” aspect of the holiday really doesn’t apply to me – apart from the fact that I get to spend more time with my wife and that my stepson, whose company I enjoy, comes for a visit.
No, what I like about Christmas are the traditions. Some of them are no more than memories now, but those memories are sweeter than the cranberry sauce I used to eat with my turkey before the Type 2 diabetes kicked in.
I remember when Christmas was a televised songfest, an excuse for crooners like Perry Como and Bing Crosby and Andy Williams to sing the songs that helped make them famous, or for younger talents like John Denver and Karen Carpenter to start new traditions that ended far too soon when they died far too young.
I remember Bing singing The Little Drummer Boy with Bowie, and I remember John Lennon turning an old ballad into a Christmas song with an anti-war message. I remember when Bob Hope sang Thanks for the Memory, when Dick Clark narrated the Times Square “ball drop” at midnight on New Year’s Eve and when Guy Lombardo’s orchestra played Auld Lang Syn.
I remember when I thought trolls were singing yuletide carols and “ ’round yon virgin” referred to the fact that Mary was rotund – because she was expecting a baby. And I remember wondering why old acquaintances should be forgot and what anyone would do with a gift of seven swans a-swimming if they didn’t happen to have a pond handy.
I remember Charlie Brown picking out that same forlorn little Christmas tree year after year, about the same time the residents of Whoville were making the Grinch’s tiny heart grow three times larger. And I remember Burl Ives and Jimmy Durante going all animated on us with annual TV tales of Rudolph and Frosty, respectively. (Ives’ animated character, Sam the Snowman, may have looked a little like Frosty, but he narrated Rudolph’s story.)
I remember the gift requests Santa fulfilled for me as a child, from a Slinky dog one Christmas to a Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots set another year. I remember the large, wooden castle I assembled at my aunt’s house when we spent Christmas morning there, and I remember how my grandmother always got more gifts than anyone else … because she had more close relatives than anyone else!
I remember riding down Christmas Tree Lane in Fresno every year with my parents. Traveling at 5 miles per hour with the headlights off, I’d marvel at the strings of colorful lights that turned the street’s towering Deodar cedars into living Christmas trees, and I’d smile at the hundreds of decorations that transformed the houses on either side into treats for the eyes.
I remember caroling with some of my friends in high school and hanging those special family ornaments on the tree.
But Christmas isn’t just memories. It’s the fact that the list of memories keeps growing, just like Santa’s list. There are new neighborhood decorations to explore, new gifts to wrap and open, new traditions to create. (Ever tried Irish cream in eggnog? You should. If you’ve got a sweet tooth, it puts the old rum standby to shame.)
“Wait a second,” you may be saying. “Didn’t you say you were joining the ‘war on Christmas’? Everything you’re saying seems very much in the holiday spirit.”
That’s actually my point: Christmas belongs to all of us. It’s not just a religious holiday or a reason to run up thousands of dollars in credit card debt. It’s not even merely an excuse to gather with family or drop a few dollars in the kettle by the supermarket door. It’s more than all those things. Christmas is, in a very real sense, a living chronicle of all the things that have come before, from waiting up all night as a child to spending that first Christmas with your sweetheart to spending that last one with your parents. At times, it’s joyous; at other times, it’s bittersweet, very much like life itself.
Christmas tells the story of our lives, and perhaps it’s because I’m a storyteller that it holds such appeal to me. But regardless of the reason, I know I’m not alone. I’m wading into the war on Christmas because I want to end it. Let's stop bickering about why we like Christmas and just enjoy the season, because when it comes right down to it, we don’t need an excuse for peace on earth and goodwill to men (and women, too, of course).
We just need to express it, to make it happen. That, to me, is the spirit of Christmas.
May you have a joyful one.
