Wednesday

27 December 2017

— Christmas tree in all its finery standing silently to my left

Good Morning All,

As we’ve been doing on Boxing Day for the past thirty-one years, we headed North to my sister-in-law Hannah's and brother-in-law Hans Jørgen’s house in Gentofte, one of Copenhagen’s whiskey-belt suburbs. 

Back in 1982, when the people of Massachusetts in their infinite wisdom voted a lowered property tax proposal into law, when towns across the state laid off half their trash men, firemen, and teachers, when we came to work at C.I.S. (although my job there did not materialize that first year), Hannah and Hans Jørgen most graciously took us into their home until we could get ourselves on our feet financially enough to rent a house. One does not forget generosity like that.

Even back then, Hannah put on a splendid afternoon drop-in Boxing Day feast for her extended family and assorted friends. Present yesterday were her three kids, Suzie, Michael, and Alan; with their kids, Mikkel, Lasa, Daniel, Molly, Rosemary, and Carl Emil; Alan’s wife Julia; Mikey and Maria, ant their kids, Naima and Amira; and Johs, Holly, and I. 

Esther, after Christmas Eve at Mikey’s and Christmas Day at our house, decided her back was not up for the trek, but sent along with us a poinsettia for her sister.

I have known Hannah and Hans Jørgen since 1972. I've known their three kids since they came up to around my belly button, and we played basketball together on the local school playground. I’ve known their kids all their lives.

Every inch of every counter in Hannah’s kitchen was filled with platters of turkey, stuffing, roast pork, various condiments and sauces, several cheeses with sliced peppers, breads, fresh fruit, urns of coffee. And the stove was equally up-taken by simmering gravy and potatoes.

One just grabbed a plate from the fifteen-foot long dining room table, loaded it up, and returned to join the animated conversation on whatever topic had the fore. We kidded Michael a fair amount about somehow getting himself reelected to the town council. Alan told a fascinating story about a colleague who has developed a pin-prick blood test that can reveal evidence of twenty-five different types of cancer after a fifteen-minute analysis of the blood. Alan has a 5% interest in this venture, for which they will have a patent by the end of January. Alan assured us the process works. I assured him I would know to which impossibly rich nephew I will come should I fall upon hard times.

I got a laugh out of a rendition of an actual dream where I am at something looking much like the Pearly Gates, saying, “Hi Saint Peter, how’s it going?” Saint Peter looks at me quizzically and asks, "Parlez-vous français?” I tell him not really. He asks, “Taler du dansk?” I tell him a little bit. I was going to do German next, but by then—given the recognized plight of the benighted fellow telling the story—there was general mirth around the table. 

It was so good to be back in the house where we’d made our first Danish home so many years ago. Hannah and HJ spent many years in Greenland where she taught and he was chief surgeon. They have hung much Greenlandic art, some of which is curiously like Swazi art. Portraits of HJ’s dad and grandfather were hanging on the walls right there where they were supposed to be. And of course they had up all their Yule decorations, and probably fifty candles lit for coziness.

When--in my now semi-hermetic state—it all got a little too much for me, I went out for a brief walk up to the train station where we used to go every school morning. Virtually nothing along the way had changed in the intervening three and a half decades. The wind was pleasantly blustery and the air cold on my face. I had a brief chat with the Britta in my head for bringing me into her family.

Back inside, my back letting me know it would not mind us being supine for a quarter hour, and everyone in the living-room happily conversing in Danish (without feeling obliged to switch into English for their language-challenged American uncle), I slipped into the den, took from the shelf Hannah’s copy of Faulkner’s Sound and Fury, which I’d not read since sophomore year at college, stretched out on the sofa, and enjoyed once again Benjy’s narration about looking for a lost quarter in the deep South.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. One recent Johs snap and one recent Holly snap: