Wednesday

6 December 2017

— Through the now bare trees, a necklace of double rubies heading east

Good Morning All,

I have not yet grown tired of sitting by the south windows enjoying my white Christmas lights on our magnolia. Especially satisfying is at sunset when the lights seem to be absorbing the fading light in the west so that they gather confidence and intensity.

They take me back to childhood Decembers when our folks would take us kids for evening rides around Arlington, including the rich section up on Morningside. There was the electrician’s house on Norfolk Road, said to have a million lights, such that planes coming up from New York could orient themselves by it even in heavy fog.

As my friend Allen reminds me, we’d see sooner or later a house all decked out in nothing but blue lights, and my mother, whose favorite color was blue, would nevertheless say disdainfully, “Why would anyone want to make their house look like a beer joint?” In the backseat, having been eager for our dad to find a blue house, we’d be killing ourselves.

Mrs. Ladd, the legally blind elderly lady who lived across the street, would always call my dad within a half hour of his putting our string of outdoor lights around the yew bush to the right of the porch to thank him. Even as a little kid that used to boggle my mind: how beautiful those lights that I took half for granted must have been for her!

In the history part of yesterday’s Day Book, I mentioned the first Burger King opened in Miami. And a response came from one of you: 

That first Burger King was right by Ponce de Leon Junior High School, where I was a student. Most all important after school activities took place at BK, including love trysts and fights, all of which were gossiped about during classes and recesses. 

That was also the school I attended during the Cuban missile crisis. And I do mean attend. Most folks in that district had fled but Wilma said: You are going to school!! We were three in my class with my favorite science teacher, who harangued delightfully about the hysteria most of the day. 

Come to think of it, that's actually quite similar to Mrs. Ladd and our Christmas lights. I almost didn’t put the Burger King opening on the list, and then here it opens a vault of memories for one of you.

Incidentally, I have not a clue who Wilma is. Which is one of the things I liked so much about the second paragraph. The writer is so deeply into his or--it’s fairly easy to guess—her memory, it never occurs to her I might not know this determined Wilma.

I shall have to write back and ask how come she had all the luck. Nothing whatsoever exciting ever happened in or around my junior high school, other than at an assembly a guy sitting up on the stage croaked while waiting to make his speech. The two guys next to him sort of leaned their shoulders in to keep him more or less upright, and then the curtain was coming down.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. One Johs and one Holly snap: