The gifts have all been exchanged, the big day come and gone. New memories were made and old revisited. I listened to my Christmas tree as I do every year and what I heard saddened me. This is the first time I can remember that happening. Well, if one is truly listening you can never be sure of what you will hear. That is the very reason I heard what I didn't necessarily want to hear, but what the tree had to say. Contrary to what some may believe , we really don't get to write our own story, we just get to live it. But that is the blessing we all receive from a loving God, his guidance if we really listen.
It isn't my intent to write a sermon this morning but I felt a little context was necessary, a sort of preface to this story. With each passing year we have more Christmas memories, that is just the natural order of things, and so there is more to review. This year I brought out some mementos that had been given to me by a cousin. These mementos came from my Uncle Doc and Aunt Bet, as I always called them. Betty is Mom's sister. This particular Aunt and Uncle lived just down the road from me and so I knew them quite well. Aunt Bet was unable to have children of her own and so spoiled me and my siblings. For my birthday and Christmas they always gave me " lavish " gifts. I always felt they were anyway, they were always the cool stuff. I was told their budget was a little higher than at our house because they didn't have four mouths to feed ! I can easily see the logic in that. So, anyway, I got a few mementos out and one of them is a cigarette lighter. Yes, Aunt and Uncle smoked, everybody did when I was a kid. What struck me about this lighter was that it was engraved. On it is Uncle Doc's initials GLR. That stands for Garnet Leonard Reney. I knew his name was Garnet but had to ask about the L. Under that is a date, 12-25-49. Christmas 1949, so it was a gift exchanged 68 years ago. There was another, the same type that had Betty engraved on it. I gave that one to my brother for him to enjoy.
As I said Aunt Bet and Uncle Doc lived just down the road from me. They lived " down to soakhide " as it was always referred to. Their home was originally a " camp " cabin. Uncle Docs' father Victor had built two of these camps side by side on Soak Hides road. As I heard it he rented them out to hunters during the season. These hunters would have been mostly water fowlers, going for duck or geese. Both of those houses stand to this day, although they have long since been used as year round residences and have undergone some minor renovations. Uncle Doc would have been living at his parents home in 1949. He had moved to Baltimore just before the war taking a job with the Miller bros. He was drafted and served in WW2 where he got the name, Doc. He would marry Aunt Bet on the 26 of August in 1950. He was twenty six years old. He acquired the camp house from his Dad and they moved in there. They remained together for 53 years before Aunt Bet passed. Uncle Doc survived another four years before joining her. They spent their entire married lives in that home. Someone, I don't know who, lives there still. But I have a cigarette lighter that was there for the whole story. If only it could talk. Those lighters were given as gifts the Christmas before they were married and they kept them forever. Now the one is in my care and custody. It will become a relic one day, a relic of a place and time long since gone. Truth is, it already is. That is what saddened me as I listened to the Christmas tree this year. I was sad for the passing of time, sad for those no longer here to share the memory with. Still, I will be reminded each time I see that lighter sitting on my shelf of Aunt Bet and Uncle Doc and all the wonderful memories they gave me.
It isn't my intent to write a sermon this morning but I felt a little context was necessary, a sort of preface to this story. With each passing year we have more Christmas memories, that is just the natural order of things, and so there is more to review. This year I brought out some mementos that had been given to me by a cousin. These mementos came from my Uncle Doc and Aunt Bet, as I always called them. Betty is Mom's sister. This particular Aunt and Uncle lived just down the road from me and so I knew them quite well. Aunt Bet was unable to have children of her own and so spoiled me and my siblings. For my birthday and Christmas they always gave me " lavish " gifts. I always felt they were anyway, they were always the cool stuff. I was told their budget was a little higher than at our house because they didn't have four mouths to feed ! I can easily see the logic in that. So, anyway, I got a few mementos out and one of them is a cigarette lighter. Yes, Aunt and Uncle smoked, everybody did when I was a kid. What struck me about this lighter was that it was engraved. On it is Uncle Doc's initials GLR. That stands for Garnet Leonard Reney. I knew his name was Garnet but had to ask about the L. Under that is a date, 12-25-49. Christmas 1949, so it was a gift exchanged 68 years ago. There was another, the same type that had Betty engraved on it. I gave that one to my brother for him to enjoy.
As I said Aunt Bet and Uncle Doc lived just down the road from me. They lived " down to soakhide " as it was always referred to. Their home was originally a " camp " cabin. Uncle Docs' father Victor had built two of these camps side by side on Soak Hides road. As I heard it he rented them out to hunters during the season. These hunters would have been mostly water fowlers, going for duck or geese. Both of those houses stand to this day, although they have long since been used as year round residences and have undergone some minor renovations. Uncle Doc would have been living at his parents home in 1949. He had moved to Baltimore just before the war taking a job with the Miller bros. He was drafted and served in WW2 where he got the name, Doc. He would marry Aunt Bet on the 26 of August in 1950. He was twenty six years old. He acquired the camp house from his Dad and they moved in there. They remained together for 53 years before Aunt Bet passed. Uncle Doc survived another four years before joining her. They spent their entire married lives in that home. Someone, I don't know who, lives there still. But I have a cigarette lighter that was there for the whole story. If only it could talk. Those lighters were given as gifts the Christmas before they were married and they kept them forever. Now the one is in my care and custody. It will become a relic one day, a relic of a place and time long since gone. Truth is, it already is. That is what saddened me as I listened to the Christmas tree this year. I was sad for the passing of time, sad for those no longer here to share the memory with. Still, I will be reminded each time I see that lighter sitting on my shelf of Aunt Bet and Uncle Doc and all the wonderful memories they gave me.
This is the lighter. Pretty high tech for 1949 as you press in the side and the top pops open , striking the flint automatically. They always did have the " coolest " stuff. In fact Uncle Doc bought a 1965 Mustang in 1965 ! Aunt Bet ? Aunt Bet never did learn to drive.
Yeah just like Dickens wrote in a Christmas Carol I was visited. I was visited this year by the ghost of Christmas past. Well, I guess when you reach my age that is to be expected. It has been quite a year, all told. I'm still thinking about what that ghost had to say, and that, is a good thing.
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