"Christmas is a time that can take us back to those glorious daze of yesteryear…or maybe, it's the spiced rum!"

I wuz twelve years old that Christmas of 1947.  It wuz cold 'n blowing snow 'n I wuz praying for a white Christmas.  Never happened.  Not all the time I wuz growing up in Kentucky.  There wuz times when maybe there might'a been a little snow left here 'n there 'n I recall more'n one Christmas where the snowflakes just teased us, but never a white Christmas.

The N&W Railroad wuz on strike that year.  Wudn't at all unusual in that day 'n age.  Dad had got on with the C&O down in Lexington 'n he had to work on Christmas Eve 'n then back to work the day after Christmas, so he prob'ly wudn't gonna be able to make it home.  That wuz a long way to drive back then, 'specially in the snow 'n ice.  Dangerous roads in the wintertime.

That wuz sumthin' of what you might call a 'transitional' Christmas for me.  Twelve is, or wuz anyway, pretty much of a transitional time for boys anyway.  What with puberty and all.  Seems like one day, you're a little boy playin' at little boy games 'n overnight, you come face to face with being a man.  You quit the little boy things 'n start doing the things that a man has to do.  It's a confusing time.  Exciting, of course, but confusing.

I still remember that last little boy gift I got that year.  It wuz a cap pistol.  I wuz totally enamored of guns.  And this one wuz beautiful.  Modeled on the famed Colt .45 Peacemaker.  And I knew what the Colt Peacemaker looked like.  I had hefted one, knew its weight.  Had helped to clean it 'n knew the smell of it.  Hadn't fired it though.  And never did.

But that cap pistol wuz beautiful.  And it broke in the early hours of Christmas Day 'n wuz put away 'n lost forever.  Didn't matter much because that p'ticklar Christmas wuz the start of a brand new world, so to speak.

Since I wuz the oldest 'n wuz, after all, twelve years old 'n since my Dad wuz out of town 'n prob'ly wudn't gonna make it home for Christmas, I stayed up 'n helped my Mother finish wrapping the presents 'n putting them under the tree for my three brothers.  

It wuz not quite midnight 'n we were just finishing. Mom wuz standing by the tree 'n I was sitting on the floor. It wuz warm in the house but I remember the wind 'n the clatter of ice pellets against the window.  I had just said, "I wish Dad wuz here…"  when the door opened 'n there he wuz, brown leather jacket 'n Stetson hat 'n all….

Y'know, I don't really recall much else about that Christmas.  You'd think I would 'cuz it wuz, as I said, a transitional one for me, but I don't.  I just remember wishing my Dad c'd be home 'n as I said it, there he wuz.  And, still there are people who wonder about me 'n why, at seventy-five years old, I still profess to believe in Santa Claus….

"Something about an old-fashioned Christmas makes it hard to forget."