I don’t like packing away fall. But Christmas has invaded the kitchen, the mantel, the bookshelf, where a pair of decorative skates hangs like fuzzy dice from a car mirror.
I want the place looking festive when Smartacus comes home.
So, I put a pair of my grandpa’s antique snowshoes by the fireplace, and draped them with lights. My grandpa used them 90 years ago to slog through the snow to check on a gold mine he ran north of Tahoe, where the drifts would rise 60 feet. Some years, they’d even put snowshoes on their horses.
You think putting shoes on a toddler is tricky? Try strapping snowshoes to 800-pound quarter horse.
My grandpa always seemed extra good with snow and toys and tools. Sure, he was slow to walk with at ballgames, and he told jokes I didn’t understand. But what a grandpa he was.
For years, I thought he might’ve been Santa Claus.
Once, when I cleaned my strumpet – a chunky hunk of brass made by Conn – I couldn’t get the valves back in correctly after oiling them. He studied the situation, lined up the slots just so, and the strumpet worked again.
“Thanks, Grandpa.”
“My pleasure,” he said.
Evidently, if you can strap snowshoes to a horse in 10-degree weather, you can do nearly anything.
All my life, I have liked classic songs and old grandpas who have stood the test of time. Now I am one.
Turns out: Aging isn’t even that bad.
At 67, sometimes I go off in search of the perfect burger with just the right amount of grease – not too much, but not too little either.
And sometimes, at a steakhouse, I’ll just go with the soup and the salad. Weird, right?
Christmas is extra kind to kids and old men. Christmas is whiskey riffs and pumpkin cheesecake, all the things old men like … Judy Garland. Donna Reed.
Christmas is, often, so frappin’ ridiculous.
As in…
The other day, I ran into a friend ringing the bell outside the market, asking only a few bucks, or some spare change from departing shoppers.
She told me how frustrating it could be. Shoppers would go to great lengths to avoid her Salvation Army plea – how they’d put a hand to the side of their face, so as not to be seen, as if on a perp walk into jail.
She told me how people would avoid eye contact, or acknowledgement of any kind.
A “Catch you next time, OK?” would’ve sufficed.
So, I dropped a few bucks in the pot, as I usually do, feeling morally superior to those who can but won’t.
And when I got home, I discovered an extra bag of groceries that weren’t mine. The bagger had accidentally dropped them into my cart. Some yogurt. Some orange juice. A carafe of coffee creamer.
I debated with myself. Do I just keep it? Or, do I schlepp them the two miles back to the store, through seven stoplights — most of them red, through that one intersection that takes forever, past the post office that spills out onto the boulevard — just in case the shopper in front of me turns up demanding her missing groceries?
I mean, it wasn’t my mistake. That stuff happens.
The staff at the store seemed a little confused at first, when I walked in with the bag of someone else’s groceries — like it was something I’d done wrong.
Then it dawned on the assistant manager: “This doofus grandpa guy is actually returning free groceries? Holy spit. Now I’ve *^%$#!@#@&^ seen it all.”
Thanks, he said.
My pleasure.
Got bears? Please join me and co-author Steve Searles in Sierra Madre tonight for a discussion on how to handle wild bears in the suburbs, a phenomenon that increases every year. As you know, you didn’t see bears in the suburbs of LA 50 years ago. Or even in Mammoth Lakes. Now you spot them nearly every week. Why? We’ll tell you, as well as offer tips on keeping them off your couch. 7 p.m. tonight (Dec. 6), at The Lodge in Sierra Madre, 33 E. Sierra Madre Blvd., in Sierra Madre. Free.
We’ll also be at Town Grill in Montrose on Thursday, from 5-6 pm, for book signings, bad jokes and general fellowship.
Finally, props to the Happy Hour Hiking Club members who turned out for a sweep of the Las Virgenes Canyon on Saturday. A few tricky spots, but all in all, a great day. Special props to Donna Schuele for setting up our stop at Sagebrush Cantina. I could see us doing an encore hike here soon. Cheers!
Coming Saturday: What a gift our pets are
Your grandpa sounds like an amazing guy. Clearly, you got his genes in your DNA. So happy (and not surprised) that you went to the trouble of returning those groceries. I am sure you can expect a Christmas Miracle of your own in return. Thanks for another uplifting post, Chris.
I got no DNA from that grandpa, unfortunately. He was an aviator, outdoorsman, engineer, horseman, a leader of men. Nothing on his resume matches anything on my resume.
My two sons loved, admired and respected their grandpa so much it became a race to see which one would have a boy to name after my dad. The younger son first had a daughter then older son had a son. Bingo! A new Jacob was born. My mom and dad only had daughters so you can imagine how they loved their grandsons.
It’s a special kind of love that has carried them throughout their adult years.
We all loved our grandpa! He was kind, wise and so much fun. He was a model for all of us and I think back on my time with my grandparents now that I am a grandparent myself. I took your Bears book on vacation and read it cover to cover!
I’d return those items, too…but if it was me, and it happened to be a box of donuts…I have serious doubts.
The trouble with your writing, Chris, (not from your side but from mine) is that, just like with people like Shakespeare and Jane Austen, I come to expect it so much that I sometimes take it for granted.
It’s OK, Ted. I’m like a chatty drunk at a cocktail party, where the drinks are better than the stories.
I mean that I sometimes take the excellence for granted. The stories are always great, and I don’t drink anyway.
A sweet column and probably as close to “Crime And Punishment” as a God fearing Midwestern boy is likely to get. And I continue to enjoy your search for suitable words and phrases to substitute for the curse words a coarser human being like myself might use.
I just love the book! Kudos to you and Steve-the story of the love this man has for those bears, so expertly and interestingly told by one of the best writers in the West! I gave a copy to my brother for his birthday today and my sister’s is on order from the Escondido Barnes and Noble. I told them they should order several more copies as it is that good. I mentioned that you were a former writer for the LA Times as well. Have a wonderful Christmas, Chris! Liz and Dave
Liz, thanks for the multiple purchases and the lobbying. It’s hard to sell books. Appreciate the extra efforts on our behalf.
I had a grandfather who was a physician and surgeon and bug enthusiast. He put them in little bottles filled with formaldehyde , and captured my imagination. He taught me the skills and precautions of setting off fireworks when I was five. He could tie a surgical knot with three fingers, having lost the tip of a thumb to the self same pyrotechnics when he was a youth. He was a master gardener, growing his own vegetables in the six feet deep prairie soil of his back yard. His prowess with a billiard cue was legendary. He would see a patient then play billiards with them in his own parlor adjacent to his offices. I had to stand on a stool to play , but he taught me three corner billiards and pocket pool before I was eight. My first memory of Christmas was at his house. I was 31/2. I have many stories…so I share your affection for grandfathers, and, like you, am immodestly one of them.
Where We Are
This time of year things are slowing—
Lulling, stalling, threatening to stop;
Halloween candy is already dry
With waiting, turning stale in the sack;
Thanksgiving flared like a roaring torch
But has gone out, and there is a sense
Of an ending not far up ahead;
December has opted to weigh in
And place its glittering heavy hand
Upon us, and snow is in the wings
And heard rehearsing in high country
Ready at last to blow out on stage—
Blind and chill the larger audience
With subtext for all that is unsaid;
You feel Winter’s metallic tines sing
Deep in the flesh of the mountain tops
On cool December mornings that fly
Uneasy clouds like flags with a lack
Of Fall’s warm conviction—sans the scorch
Of Summer memory so intense
Behind Autumn’s balmy haze, glowing red;
For it is time for Winter to drift in
As at the sea the slowly cooling sand
Awaits the storms, waves, violent swings
Of light and sound, stunned sunshine free
From mood, torrential fits that wage
War on beach and cliff, and that silence
After rain, when Winter’s playbook can be read
Detailing the green mirage of Spring—
Like things ahead, vague dreams happening
Like rime frost in Winter’s icy bed;
While in the lists of commerce knights
Charge us ceaselessly, the lights
Of Christmas going up into the air
Melee of music rising like a prayer
In anticipation of who knows what and where
Staring down that old cold Winter stare
With the new year still in its underwear….
PS I love the picture of you smooching Grinch. I think everyone should make it a tradition to find someone who is “grinch-like” and give them a smack or a hug for the Holidays. (Always ask permission first, of course.)