The Christmas tree my father lost and found in 1967: Opinion
Christmastime brought magic to our rural Indiana town. Citizens visited the brick post office to mail cards and visit Postmaster Clarence Pook. Across the street at the library, Edna, the Story-Hour Lady, dressed in pioneer clothes, read holiday stories to children. The day after Thanksgiving, the volunteer firefighters hung giant red-and-white plastic candy canes from the lamps on State Street and displayed a life-size manger scene at the south end of town.
Snow came early and blanketed the ground until after the state boys’ basketball tournament in early spring. My father bought our real Christmas tree from a local farm every year. Our home lacked a fireplace, so my brother and I hung our red-and-white flannel stockings on the windowsills. Mom used Elmer’s glue and green glitter to paint our names on the furry white part of the Christmas stockings.
Dad taught high school and advised the Future Farmers of America chapter. The FFA chapter bought the high school a real Christmas tree decorated with blue, green and red bulbs and fragile, sparkling glass ornaments. Students and teachers enjoyed the tree until the semester ended.
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Tradition dictated that the FFA boys and my father take the tree and decorations to an impoverished family. Unfortunately, our 1965 Chevy Biscayne station wagon was inadequate to carry the nine-foot tree. Dad borrowed the school’s World War II-era Army truck and told the family they would receive a large, fully decorated Christmas tree.
The three of them—the thirty-something schoolteacher and the two teenage boys in blue corduroy Future Farmer jackets—put the tree in the truck’s bed. They congratulated themselves on the good deed they were about to do. The three wise men traveled east on the state highway past well-manicured farms and freshly painted red barns.
As the old truck jostled onto a county road, pieces of packed ice and gravel spit up from the truck’s worn tires. Finally, nearing the family’s home, Dad looked in the truck bed to check on the gift.
No tree. No lights. No decorations. No green and red metal tree stand. Nothing but an empty and scratched truck bed.
Horrified, Dad turned the truck around. He and the students retraced their path to town, looking in ditches for the missing tree. Nothing could be found.
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The gray truck and three not-so-wise men arrived back from the country as darkness fell. The twinkle of lighted candy canes and the Evangelical United Brethren steeple lights signaled evening.
Dad thought about it. “What should I do? Should I go home and get our tree?”
He did not believe that was viable, with his two small children enjoying the tree, but he steeled himself for that option. If necessary, he thought, his children could learn about sharing.
A tree lot at the used-car place was closing for the night. Dad reached into his wallet and bought the best tree on the lot. Then, off to the hardware store for lights, ornaments and a new metal tree stand. The owner was closing his register for the day but recognized my father and let him in.
With a new tree in the bed of the beat-up gray truck, the group headed east again. They could spy children at each window as they approached the family’s large farmhouse. The older children greeted the group and set up the tree in their living room.
Dad noticed a stack of presents and bags of candy and fruit donated by the Lions Club and other community groups. The scent of anticipation and cinnamon apples hung in the air. The teacher and the teenagers left the family in happiness and wonder. Dad and those high-school students received a huge blessing when they saw the lights in the eyes of those children.
Several weeks after that Christmas, Dad went into the brick post office to pick up the mail and chat with Clarence, the postmaster. A man Dad did not know came in and began talking to Clarence loudly. “Clarence,” the stranger said. “It’s the oddest thing. I was driving east of town a few nights before Christmas, and you would not believe it. I found a completely decorated, beautiful, nine-foot Christmas tree that someone had thrown in a ditch!”
Amy McVay Abbott is a journalist and author from southern Indiana. She is the author of "Centennial Farm Family: Cultivating Land and Community, 1837-1937." This essay first appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Magic of Christmas. (c)2022
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: The Christmas tree my father lost and found in 1967: Opinion
