Christmas in 1950s Milton

I used to spend Saturday mornings watching “The Rifleman" on our black-and-white TV. It was my favorite western, starring Chuck Conners. New characters arrived in North Fork on the stagecoach practically every week, just like they came to town on the modern-day stagecoach, the train, during my later college days, when I was living in the El Fidel Hotel in New Mexico.

As I was watching on one particular 1950s Saturday, I was spooning Sugar Pops cereal into my mouth, and maybe crunching a multi-layer Fireball, which always reminded me of a planet and burned my tongue in its orbit around my mouth. In fact, I had dreamed of finding a planetarium for Christmas under the tree. I would shine it on the ceiling and dream of the stars. I knew it would probably end up in the Going Out Chest in the front hallway, where my mother thought she was hiding my detritus even after only one debut of the items.

Finally, I sprinkled some grated parmesan cheese into a saucer, picking it up gingerly with my tongue. What a concoction! The Conestoga wagons were being hit with burning arrows when my mother came up behind me. "You're not normal!" she proclaimed. "Other children are down at the fire hall to see Santa Claus, and getting netted stockings with candy canes and oranges!"

I had forgotten about this ritual. I knew my father was Santa Claus, because I heard him drop an oath or two as he pushed my sea-green bicycle through the kitchen door. Yes, I knew that I was not like the others, and I didn't care! "You're a mystery," my mother sighed. "I don't know where you came from." I took this as a great compliment and started the long trek (to me) down Chestnut Street to the fire hall.

My grandmother said that "Old Kris," as she called Santa, gave her and her two sisters stockings of oranges and candy canes during her childhood in Selbyville in the early 1900s. That was all they got, and she was thrilled! Her father was the town blacksmith, Billo McCabe. I've seen old black-and-white photos of him covered in soot. He also painted designs on carriages. Sort of like me with my paint-covered clothes and hands.

Anyhow, I climbed back up the hill in Milton carrying the netted stocking, my booty, proof of my questioned normalcy. I roller skated up and down the cracked sidewalk in front of our house. The skates only stayed on for a few panels of sidewalk. They had to be screwed on with a key over the soles of my shoes. What work for a few feet of enjoyable, but scary pleasure! I could see the two Christmas trees we had in the windows on either end of the house as I skated by. It was the only sport I ever really liked. I could even skate backward!

I had asked for roller rink skates for Christmas, plus a short roller rink skirt. I thought of the cold bottles of Yahoo chocolate drink at the concession there. These I dreamed of as I sat in the Milton Consolidated School auditorium watching the Coca-Cola Santa Claus holiday film. Santa would be on his sleigh taking a break, and he lifted the green frosty bottle to his cherry-hued lips, chugging it down like I would do with the bottle of Yahoo. We sat in the dark with the sound of the reels turning. At the end, the film would spin off the wheels of the projector with a whir, signaling the end of the last day of school before Christmas vacation!

Freedom to be a kid for a week or two! Back then, there were no computers to issue online lessons or reading assignments, which probably happens these days. The same for snow days. You woke up with your bedroom looking bright, and you knew it was a snow day, so you could go sledding on Marie Lawson's hill.

Among the gifts under the tree that year, I found a pair of roller skates in a shiny red metal carrying case, and in another the accompanying rink skating skirt. Many years later, in college, I still had that case and carried it all the way to New Mexico. My mother had forgotten to take it and put it in the Going Out Chest!

One night, I climbed out of my freshman-year dorm window, jumped down and accompanied some friends to Albuquerque on a Greyhound bus for the weekend. Ah, freedom! No longer a kid. I could be wild in the Wild West!