Page 28 - voices-2022-12

GLEANINGS FROM THE GROVE

flush with victory and chilled to the bone but and the biggest tree we ever had was ready to
triumphantly bearing the requisite three trees. decorate.
Little one for g’ma. Medium sized for neighbor Perhaps a memory of Christmas past I wish I
and our magnificent specimen that would look could forget is about snow on the roof. The house

oh so splendid in the bay window, fully decorated in Dutch Flat was begun in the early 1850’s, and
and a symbol of my hunter/gatherer prowess. the kitchen portion of the house had been built
Father came home. We dragged the tree in the 1880’s. Obviously the builder must have
through the front door, past the living room, gone to the same engineering and measuring

and finally into the dining room. Out comes the school I did because the roof was at the wrong
tree stand (extra heavy duty) and the crowning pitch, and the snow would slide nicely until it
moment is about to unfold. To me, it was like just sat on the roof, not sliding off. My father
the Marines raising the American flag on Mt. was always worried that this 120-year-old house

Suribachi. Except that the ten-foot tree did not fit would crumble to the ground—that the weight
in the eight-foot ceiling space! Axe man I was, but of the snow would eventually crush the kitchen.
my measuring skills needed a little refinement His solution was simple. Find a boy, give him a
and polishing. I think I managed to slink away shovel, and send him to clear away the snow! I

before father used his Navy chief voice on me was always hoping he would select my brother,
and my so-called intelligence. However, a little but he was way too young for any of that, let
trimming here and there, it was soon finished alone shoveling what I was being told was “a
ton of snow” off the edge of the

kitchen roof. It also did not help
matters that I could open my
second-floor bedroom window
and stand on the roof and

merrily shovel away. In snow
boots, heavy jacket, winter coat,
and gloves, I would emerge and
begin my toil of removing the

snow from the metal roof so that
we could no longer fear that the
roof would cave in while mother
was cooking dinner. This took

me at least an hour or two to get
down to the bare metal and have
it all shiny and clean.
One particular day things

28 ONE COMMUNITY