A tree grows in ...
Most every family I know has family traditions that stick with them for a lifetime with modifications upon marriage. I don’t know a whole lot about my husband’s childhood family traditions, but I do know about the pet duck Hortense and how she became a story for the ages from Bill’s growing up years.
When Bill was around 3 or 4 years old and his big sister Mollie was around 5 or 6, they were given an Easter duckling which grew to be a nice, fat and sassy duck by Thanksgiving.
As the family sat to eat their Thanksgiving dinner, the table was laden with all manner of goodies from dressing to gravy, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, peas and carrots, peach pickles, pies, cookies, but the piece de resistance was the beautifully roasted bird resting on a platter in the center of the table.
I’m not sure who “spilled the beans,” but this fine fat bird was not a turkey. It seems that Hortense was being fattened up for Thanksgiving, unbeknownst to Bill or Mollie. When they learned that Hortense was part of Thanksgiving dinner, all kinds of hysterics ensued.
The whole scenario of children finding out that their beloved pet duck was Thanksgiving dinner is fodder for a family Christmas movie. I can see it now. Kids sobbing and calling out their pet’s name. What had been slices of turkey was Hortense! Mollie and Bill were horrified by the whole thing. Poor babies.
I remember when Mollie told me about this. I was horrified myself. I wonder if this is the real reason Bill will not touch any kind of cooked fowl? Of course, if I ever write a screenplay involving a pet duck, she would not become Thanksgiving dinner. She would miraculously show up looking in the window. All would be saved and a typical Hallmark or Lifetime Christmas movie would have a happy ending.
When our children were young, it was our tradition to look for a Christmas tree in the woods, pastures, by the side of the road, wherever. We’ve run into pastures and snatched trees unabashedly. One time someone saw us and started yelling at us. We ran like crazy, tree in hand, and stuffed it in the trunk.
No, they didn’t come after us, but when I think back on it, what kind of example did we set for our children?
In a time of giving, we were taking innocent trees wherever we could find them ... right in front of our kids. Thank goodness they did not become Christmas tree thieves ... at least I don’t think they have.
The most beautiful tree we ever found was somewhere on Redbone Ridge before it became a landfill. We had been searching for about two hours and just couldn’t find anything. Then there it was. It was like something out of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The tree was perfect ... a short leaf pine, Bill’s favorite. It was a rich dark green with lots of branches, but not too tall.
And it was growing out of a discarded toilet. I have no idea how the toilet got there, but this tree had to have been growing for maybe three years. Bill went over and inspected the situation. The toilet was not in use. This was a good thing. Bill got the shovel and commenced to dig around the outside of the “throne” so that he could use the saw on the tree.
I was laughing so hard at the sight of Bill next to that toilet with a prized tree about to break free of it. When I think about it now, cellphones with cameras were not even heard of then. What a glorious picture that would have made for the ages. It is etched in my brain, though. And once we got it home and the base in water, the decorating began.
It was indeed a beautiful tree. I have wondered ever since if anyone came across that toilet with the soil all dug up and everything. I bet he or she was puzzled by that disturbed little throne. And why did a perfectly good toilet wind up out in the middle of Redbone Ridge like that?
After that “find” we started getting our tree at a Christmas tree farm that is no longer in business. The kids had a ball at the farm and we always got a nice tree, but that tree on Redbone Ridge growing out of that toilet will always be considered our most beautiful Brooks Family Christmas tree.
Coleen Brooks is a longtime resident of Gordon County who previously wrote for the Calhoun Times as a columnist. She retired as the director and lead instructor for the Georgia Northwestern Technical College Adult Education Department in 2013. She can be reached at iryshsmyle@aol.com.