A Christmas to remember

Monday will be my 81st Christmas, and over the years, there have been a few that have stood out above the rest.

I may have mentioned in the past that my parents divorced when I was a baby, and I ended up being raised by my mother’s parents in Claymont. They were both born and raised in Laurel in the late 1800s, so you might say my upbringing was just a tad different from what you have today. Our next-door neighbor had a weeping willow tree, and when I misbehaved, I had to go there and select the switch that my grandmother used to punish me.

Getting back to Christmas, my grandfather bought a Lionel train set for my first Christmas when I was 6 months old. There was some thought in the family that he bought it for himself. I still have the train in my attic.

In our house, Santa decorated the Christmas tree. Pop would buy the tree from the Methodist church or the Boy Scouts and set it up in the living room. Once I was in bed, Santa would come and trim the tree, and leave the presents. One year, I got up and had a peek downstairs, and saw Pop and my mother decorating the tree. Also, the man who played Santa at our church was Mr. Foot. He had large moles on his face, so his secret was pretty easy to discover.

I joined the Navy in 1961, and while I didn’t make it home every Christmas during the next four years, one year does stand out.

It was right after the Cuban dustup, and I had been transferred from the USS Saratoga to the USS Lexington. That would be like going from a Cadillac to a Volkswagen.

The transfer took place in Mayport, Fla., and the new duty station for the Lexington was to be Pensacola, Fla. That would require a trip around the state and passing through the Florida Straits close to Cuba. By the time we got to Pensacola, it would be close to Christmas, and since I would be low man in the division, the chance of getting leave for the holiday looked slim to none.

What happened was pure luck. The top guys in the division wanted to be on leave during the New Year’s holidays to travel to New York to see their girlfriends, so I got to have leave during Christmas.

I booked a train from Pensacola to Wilmington and hardly had time to pack before it left the station headed to Florala, Ala. To my surprise, the train backed all the way there. The next train took me to Birmingham, then to Atlanta, Ga. Finally, we went to Union Station in Washington, D.C., where I was able to shower and put on a clean uniform. Then I caught a local to Wilmington.

During the run to Birmingham, I happened upon a small poker game in the lounge among three Air Force guys and one Marine. The Marine asked me join in, and I did. It was a dollar limit and I was just a bit ahead when Lady Luck gave me a Christmas present.

The game was seven-card stud, and my first two cards were kings. The next four were two more kings and two jacks. One of the Air Force men had three aces up, so he was leading the betting. He kept betting the limit, and I kept calling. He said, “Let’s raise the limit.” I said, “Fine by me.” We went to table stakes, and when I was all in at a few hundred bucks, he announced he had a full house, aces up. I said that was nice, but it didn’t beat four kings. At that point, he quit the game.

Once in Wilmington, I could have called Pop to come get me, but I wanted to surprise them, so I decided to hitchhike. I stood on Front Street in my sailor suit with my thumb out, and nobody even gave me a second look. This was two days before Christmas. Finally, a nice Jewish man picked me up and carried me to Claymont, where the Governor Printz curves up to meet the Philadelphia Pike. From there, I walked down the back road and came in the cellar door to surprise my grandparents for a merry Christmas.

Fishing report

Keith Kaufman and his son Cody were at it again last Saturday. They fished out of Indian River Inlet and trolled up five big stripers to over 40 inches.

I spent over 30 minutes at Indian River Inlet last Saturday, and the place was well attended by fishermen. If any fish were caught, I failed to see them.