I recently received a notice from Social Security. If I am to keep getting my retirement benefits I have to start acting more like an old man. Apparently I’ve not been meeting my minimum annual requirement for talking about the good old days. So, this post is offered in an attempt to make amends for that oversight.
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When you live 2000 miles from home, it can really be difficult during the Christmas holidays. When we lived in Portland, Kathy would bake cookies, I would play my “John Denver and the Muppets” Christmas Album, and we would all wander through the fields at a u-cut tree farm and cut down our own Christmas tree. Boxes would soon arrive and presents would pile up under the tree. Good food would be lovingly prepared and eaten.
So, what was missing? Well, remember now, this was in the good old days before Santa had a GPS, Rudolph had an energy-saving LED nose, and people used smart phones and Skype to communicate. So, on Christmas Eve our only contact with distant relatives was over the telephone (and, hey kids, phones had wires in those days!). This was a very poor substitute for visiting and sharing the holiday spirit in person.
As many of you know, Kathy has a sister named Janet. She’s always been very sweet. When she was a teenager she underwent an “et-ectomy” and has been called Jan ever since. Fortunately, when her name was truncated her sweetness was not. In the year of our Lord, Nineteen-hundred-eighty-and-nine, Jan decided to fly out to Portland for Christmas and surprise her sister Kathy. Jan revealed her plans to me in October, swore me to silence, and enlisted my help in carrying out her subterfuge.
For over two months I kept this secret even though I knew that Kathy would have enjoyed over two months of sweet anticipation had she known Jan was coming to visit. When the time finally arrived for me to pick up Jan, I had to get out of the house without arousing suspicion, so I told Kathy that I was going Christmas shopping that evening. Since I never lie to my wife, I left early in order to do some real Christmas shopping before going to the airport.
Jan’s top secret plan (which was recently released by Edward Snowden) was to arrive at our front door holding a poinsettia and bottle of champagne. I was to make sure that Kathy and the boys answered the door when she rang the bell. Since it was not practical for Jan to carry the desired items on the plane, we had to stop and purchase them on our way back from the airport. That was not a problem since I knew that our local Safeway store had both of those things on the shelves. And, since it was already after 9 PM, I knew that when we got back to the house, Kathy and the boys would all be there and it would be easy to get them to answer the door when our surprise visitor rang the bell. I think “clockwork” would be the appropriate term here!
Jan was bubbling with excitement as we stopped at Safeway. We were now only about 1/2 mile from our house. In just a few minutes, Jan would be able to carry out the biggest Christmas surprise since grandma got run over by a reindeer, and I would no longer have to keep a secret! We were both grinning with anticipation as we entered Safeway. Our conversation became more effusive as we turned down the desired aisle.
And then came the big surprise: Kathy was standing in the aisle about 20 feet from us!! (Note, I rarely use exclamation points, much less two of them, so this was big!!!) I pulled up short, quickly turned to Jan, and thought maybe we could escape before we were noticed. Not so. Kathy turned in our direction, her expression rapidly changing from blank to quizzical to shocked. Suddenly, the Muzak Christmas carols were drowned out by shrieking and weeping Leuker women.
After much happiness and explanations as to why Kathy was at the store, why Jan was at the store, and what was my involvement in the plot, we agreed to head back home. Jan could at least still surprise Eric and Matthew. So finally, after Kathy and I returned home and were acting cool, the doorbell rang. I could picture Jan once again grinning in anticipation! (No recordings exist from this event but the following conversation captures the situation quite well.)
“Hey, Eric and Matthew. Someone’s here! Why don’t you answer the door?”
“Nah, I’m busy.”
“It won’t be for me, you guys can answer it.”
Neither son was at all interested in answering the door. So, Kathy and I opened it up and told a chagrined Jan that we couldn’t get the boys to come to the door.
When Jan came in and called out their names, of course, they came running down and were very happy to see their Aunt. After all, she probably brought presents for them!
Ahhh, the good old days!