ROGER FARMINGTON’S CHRISTMAS

1970 was a crazy year. Glad it was coming to an end. The SDS (Student for Democratic Society) was taking over college campuses, the Black Panthers were killing cops, Sharon Tates’s murders were still out there, and the Vietnam War was weekly sending home over 200 America’s finest entombed in flagged draped coffins. I had trouble figuring out war. Then, in world history class, I stumbled upon a quote by Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, not Mickey Mouses’ dog as I first thought, “Only the dead know the end of war” said the Athenian aphorist. It all now made sense to me with the rest of my life engaged in this parallel axiom. 

If all this wasn’t enough confusion for my thirteen-year-old thought process, Yoko Ono would broke up the Beatles and Dyan went electric. Neil Young had been all over the radio this last summer with “Four Dead in Ohio” a response to the riots and subsequent shooting of four students. The wanna-be sunshine soldiers and summer patriot rioters were ransacking the city of Kent, Ohio. Most of the anarchists weren’t from the university but were brought in by Yippie Jerry Rubin. After three days of burning, looting, and vandalism, the governor called in the Ohio National Guard, gave them gas masks, live ammo, and no rules of engagement. 67 bullets and 13 seconds later, Canadian Neil Young had written his anti-American anthem. My older sister Meg would graduate from Kent State and sarcastically refer to the shooting with the trope “Can’t read, can’t write, can’t duck.” The human psyche has strange coping mechanisms. 

As if the societal issues weren’t enough, the yuletide season was upon us, with me facing a life-altering event that could shape my world for the next twelve months, what to ask for Christmas. Just turning 13, the quandary this presented was to be a significant problem. Too old for a train set and too young for a Mustang GT. I can forget about asking Dad to take me to an R-rated movie like Sam Peckinpah’s Wild Bunch or The Graduate. That would be a great consolation gift. Instead, I’ll have to give this more serious thought as to an age-appropriate present.  

In the interim, I’ll need to avoid eye contact with Grandma as she growls her interrogative, “So Roger, what can I make for you this Christmas?” Last year, Grandma brought me a sweater with a picture of Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello on the front, flashing the caption SUN FUN. She expected me to wear it to the school’s holiday concert the family would be attending on Saturday. If I stepped outside the door with this fake angora on, I would invite a continuous beatdown by the neighborhood hoodlum. I pretended I couldn’t get it over my shoulders but will take it back and get a larger size. “Roger, you sure are growing” was Grandma’s unconvincing retort. Yeah, right, Grandma, I’m trading the sweater for a Jets Joe Namath number 12 jersey. Annette Funicello, really?

Right after Thanksgiving, we coerced Dad into getting the tree. He hated putting up the timber early and would wait till Christmas Eve if he could, so we did a family compromise; up on Turkey day and down on the 26th of December. Now, all we needed was a tree. 

Still full of pumpkin pie, turkey meat, and tryptophan, we all loaded into the 1965 Chevy station wagon. The tree lot was only 2 miles from home, but the anticipation made it seem like it was in another state. Once the station wagon slowed to a rolling stop, Patrick and I jumped from our backseat incarceration, tripped over each other, and then sprinted to the evergreens. Aisles and aisles of beautiful, full green trees, a forest of Christmas to be. I started picking out the larger ones with the convoluted logic the bigger the tree, the more presents under it. The only problem with this theory was the price of the large fern. Dad was already bitching at the lot attendant for the increased cost over last year’s Norwegian spruce. He said a $10 tree would accelerate the family into bankruptcy. Another one of Dad’s hyperbole was alleging he would have to sell his first male born to purchase a tree this year. That didn’t bother me; Hank was the first male born, so get the damn tree and give me Hanks’s bedroom. That’s the Christmas spirit.

Mom made the yuletide season spiritual and festive. Dad always put an extra envelope into the collection basket during Christmas mass. The week before Christmas Eve, we would go to the local soup kitchen, buy and serve meals. Mom made this an annual event with hopes we’d carry this tithing on through our adulthood. Unfortunately, Hank didn’t buy into Mom’s feed the world campaign. You would hear him quip, “You know why I will never be poor? The food sucks.” Meg would inevitably be in tears as we meandered out of the serving area. Once we cleared the soup kitchen and into the parking lot, she moaned, “Why are people in poverty.” I’d come back with, “Because they’re poor.” Dad would slap me on the back of the head, Meg would continue her DEFCON 1 diatribes, Hank flipped me a disguised middle finger and Roger Farmington` would be forever a knucklehead. 

As prim and proper Mom was 364 days a year, on the 365th morning, Christmas saw her mischievous side. Starting at our early age, Mom would do what she called punking one of us. She and Dad would decide who would get a gag gift that year. The first year Mom did it, Meg was the chosen one. Waking up on Christmas morning, we gathered around the tree and passed out the contraband, one gift each. I got a vibrating football game with little plastic men that move with the vibration. Wow! What will they think of next? 

Hank got a 4/10 single-round Mossberg shotgun. He liked to use the gun to keep critters out of the family garden. But he didn’t really care for hunting. He said if you would give the deer an AK-47 with a 15-round clip, you’d have a real sport. He didn’t see how sitting in a tree, waiting for Bambi to gallop by so you could put buckshot in her, was collegial. He smiled at Dad and thanked him and Mom for the present, then started the wheel turning for excuses on how not to go hunting with Dad this weekend. 

More nosey than polite, Meg waited her turn to open her much-awaited entitlement. Then, when she knew the moment was right for her recital, she started to open her cache. The unwrapping ceremony was a performative event. Once the wrapping was off the corrugated box and folded politely in the corner, Meg lifted the lid. Tears began to swell up in her eyes as the contents became evident. Inside the four corners of the cardboard container was a bundle of sticks with a tube of glue. A homemade pamphlet was inside titled, “ART IS FOR THE ARTIST, many ways to turn sticks into imagery” As the tears began to awash down Meg’s cheeks, she was given a tissue to dry the boo hoos. The joke promptly ran aground and was over. Mom smiled and handed her the real gift while Dad hugged her. Hank and I gave each other high fives laughing our butts off until Mom gave us that look. We continued the rest of the day appreciating the fellowship of this year’s Christmas and quietly snickering about Meg’s  box of sticks.