into the winter
night as if we heard the sound
of far-off trumpets
Every year, on the night before Christmas, or sometimes on the last Sunday night before Christmas, the tallest balsam that could be got into the church was erected on the raised platform where the choir ordinarily sat, and it was covered with homemade decorations: looped chains made of colored paper, white popcorn threaded on long strings, tinsel stars, metal clips holding lighted candles, and so on.
We had no electric lights for Christmas trees in those days; we simply used candles with open flames, burning within inches of drying evergreen needles, and the fire hazard must have been considerable.
I should think a few houses would have burned down every year, but it never seemed to happen. Anyway, the church was filled with people.
It was imperfectly lighted, and its interior seemed immense, larger than life, dominated by the great tree that reached up to the shadows just beneath the rafters, its tiny flames all twinkling. Just to be in the place was to partake of a mystery.
The services were extremely simple.
There were carols, prayers, readings of the gospel story of the first Christmas, a few quiet remarks bv the minister, distribution of candy canes and molasses-and-popcorn balls to the small children, and a final hymn: and when the wheezy organ (pumped vigorously by a sweating young man behind a screen) sounded off with “Joy to the World,” and the doors opened to let us out into the winter night, it was as if we heard the sound of far-off trumpets.
From Waiting for the Morning Train by Bruce Catton.
Not sure how old I was, 9 or 10, but one day my grandfather came in the back door of our house asking for me.
It had to be a Friday as it was on Friday night that my Grandpa and Grandma Hendrickson, my Mom’s parents, came to ‘pay a call’ on our family.
Every once in awhile my Dad might try to arrange a date night with my Mom since he knew they were coming, but most often we would just sit and visit and watch TV.
But this night, Grandpa Hendrickson came in asking for me.
He had a book for me.
He said that their church library was throwing out a bunch of books and he rescued one volume that was a book on the Civil War.
He said that he had a grandson who would want that book so they gave it to him.
I was, as I said, about 9 or 10.
Grandpa called for me when they walked in and with some satisfaction handed me a battered copy of Mr. Lincoln’s Army by Bruce Catton.
It was the first Catton book I ever read.
It was the first ‘adult book with chapters’ I ever owned.
I still have it.
The book was most likely over my head at the time and as it started out medias-res it screwed up my timing of the Civil War for years.
But the stories told and the way Catton told them have stayed with me forever.
I have a very solid memory of one summer when late at night, my older brother, Jack, read me the chapter on Crackers and Bullets.
Catton’s words were magic and magically arranged.
I know that my Grandpa’s gift made a big impression on me and maybe shaped my future.
I never ever doubted there was a book I couldn’t read after that.
It also made a big impression on my Mom and she remembered it.
See Bruce Catton grew up in Michigan, up in Benzonia (in Upper Lower Michigan) before he was a world famous Pulitzer prize winning author and Editor the American Heritage magazine of history.
My Mom remembered that Mr. Catton had written that book the her Dad had given to me.
Later in 1972, Mr. Catton came out with his autobiography titled, Waiting for the Morning train: A Michigan Boyhood.
At least that was the title when it was first released.
Later editions changed it to An American Boyhood but us Michigander’s knew the truth.
Mom knew that the book was the perfect Christmas present for her Dad and she picked up a copy.
Sorry to say that my Grandpa died that year in the middle of December, just before Christmas.
My Mom came up to me some time after Christmas with the book in her hands.
She said she had bought it for Grandpa but it seemed appropriate that I should have it.
I got the book and I got a hug.
And I got a book that she had inscribed to her father.
Thanking him for all the years of love and the interest in Mike.
That Mike she wrote about was me.
She signed it, ‘with love, Lorraine – Christmas 1972‘
I still have that book too.
(Me and my Grandparents a few years before this story.)
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