jimmortensen.com

After a year of neglect, I’m preparing to write on this bilog again. Funny how, when you first start a thing like this, your have so much to say you write every day, sometimes two or three times, but, pretty soon it becomes an assignment, one you kind of get behind on, and, finally, say “to hell with it”. At least that’s what happened to me. It’s not that I ran out of things to say, it’s just that I ran out of the ambition to say them. Hopefully, I’m back enough to add a log or two to this site as time goes on.

BTW, in the time I’ve been gone I’ve lost my mother–passed away at 99 in March–and reach the next decade–70 in October–otherwise things are still much the same–golf, gardening, getting older/better.

My dad did one on a mimeograph that he sent to his brother and sisters at Christmas time telling about the previous year. My father-in-law did the same thing to keep in touch with his far-flung family and friends. I started ours back when the kids were first born for the same reason. This is a Christmas letter.

From time to time, these letters have been praised as good ways to keep family/friends up to date and roundly criticised as worthless bragging or, worse, real downers, to people who could care less. As a offshoot of the latter, there have been some great parodies done on them. Having been a writer of these letters as well as a recipient, I’m of two minds: I enjoy most but there are some that aren’t worth the postage to send.

Whether mine is well received or not, I have some rules about writing one. First, keep it upbeat. No one cares about your or your family’s latest illness or near death experiences and, in spite of the fact it was very tramutic to you, that Fluffy or Fido kicked off last year. In fact, the year my Dad died I left it out of the letter for the simply reason I figured those that knew him knew he died, the rest wouldn’t care. Second, keep the bragging to a minimum. We all want to know that Junior made the football team and even that he was all-league second string, but we don’t need a detail of how many tackles/touchdowns he scored and a word-for-word speech from his coach. In fact, a picture with him in his uniform holding the trophy would be sufficient. The same is true about the kids’ academic achievements–we don’t need a complete report card with teacher comments. Third, if possible and, by doing the letter on a good computer program this can be done, try to include something personal to each recipient even if it is only their name(s) in the greeting. Fourth, if you are going to use photos, make sure they are of a quality to be viewable. Again, a decent program will allow you to crop, shrink, and lighten/darken the pictures so they can be seen. Maybe, for space considerations, they will be small but if the recipient is really interested they can use a magnifiying glass to enlarge a quality print. Fifth, again, if you’re using color photos, use a color printer–black and white pictures of color photos don’t come across that well. If you don’t own a color printer, how about making a separate collage of photos on the computer disc, taking it to Kinkos to be reproduced and sending it with the letter? Finally, proofread!!! Typos and misspellings are bad enough but some letters come through with passages that don’t make any sense. Try giving it to someone else to read before you print a bunch off.

A Christmas letter is a great way to update your family and friends and, by keeping a copy for yourself, make an ideal way to store your family’s history. But, if you are going to do this,there is no excuse for not doing it well.

Today is a sad one in our family history. First opened in 1933, the Catskill Game Farm is closing its doors as of today. It is sad because, growing up only about half an hour from this attraction, it holds a lot of memories for me and my children.

My parents first took my brother and I there in the late 1940’s. In those days the exhibits weren’t as exotic as they would become, consisting mostly of camels, llamas, an America Bison, deer of various species, goats, donkeys and sheep: lots of deer, goats, donkeys and sheep. These latter animals were penned in such a way that one could intermingle with them and, for a nickel, feed them special wafers from vending machines. Our photo album is chuck-a-block with pictures taken by my dad, brother and myself of various family members being mauled, goosed and trampled by these “tame” animals in their frenzy to get at those crackers.

Now jump ahead twenty years to a time when my daughters and nephews were old enough to make the same trip. The caged animal collection had increased to include giraffes, hippos, rhinos and the like. Now too, instead of still photos, we have 8mm movies of the children running from exhibit to exhibit, excitedly pointing out the various animals. (Grandpa: “Look at the big deer.” Kirsten: “My Daddy calls it an elk.”) And, the offspring of those 40’s animals there, hungrily vying for wafers and, this is new, bottles of milk. In one sequence, my youngest is buried under a herd of lambs and kids trying to get at her milk bottle and has to be rescued. Later, trying to interest a sheep in an empty bottle, she is ignored. The park had added swings and other playground equipment—my youngest nephew balks at the top of the slide “Let Harold do it!” and has to be rescued. There is a picnic area, thankfully free of animals, were we can share time and a meal. It is time well spent and a recurring theme in the movies of the late 1960’s. (My favorite scene is one where, at the end of the day, my parents are walking, hand and hand, out of the park.)

In retrospect, the 60’s might have been the heyday for the park; the Thruway was open and Disney World and Busch Gardens weren’t. I had heard in recent years that the attraction was getting seedy and attendance wasn’t what it used to be. Then too, there was a scandal concerning the selling of animals for “canned” hunts—denied—and the constant poking and protest from the various animal rights groups. However, we always planned to take our grandkids there, we were just waiting until they were old enough to be able to make a 2.5-hour car trip, enjoy the park, and make the trip back. Now, it appears, we waited too long.

Perhaps my biggest memories of Memorial Day deal with my hometown’s parades; specificialy, my part in those parades. The school band would assemble at the WWI memorial which was located a few hundred feet above the Hudson River on Main Street. (When I say “a few hundred feet above” I mean literally since the street climbed, more or less, straight up from the River and the memorial was about half way up this hill.) After a few words at that memorial, we would march about three quarters of a mile to the WWII memorial which was located in front of the school. A brief word or two there and the parade would continue past the school, up Main Street through the center of the village, up another steep hill and terminate at the Dutch Reformed Church Cemetery which is at the top of this hill, overlooking the valley(total elevation change: 250 feet from river to hilltop). The total distance was about two miles and uphill most of the way. On a hot day, the tar in the Macadam street would bubble up and stick to the bottoms of the marchers’ shoes. (If you’ve ever gotten gum on the bottom of your shoe, you’ll have some idea of what it was like. Now, imagine walking 2 miles like that.)

Once at the cemetery, there would be speeches–usually by someone running or elected to office, depending on the year–a prayer or two, a seven-gun salute and taps. (My brother or his best friend, both of whom played trumpet, having, at one point, gotten this job.) All this time the band stood at parade rest. Once the ceremonies were over, we marched back down the hill to the school before we were allowed to disband.

In those days–early 1950’s–no one thought or bothered to keep a bunch of kids hydrated or worried about it. On occasion someone would keel over from the heat which was nice for them as they got to ride back to school.

My part in all this? In junior high I started in the band by playing the base drum which meant I had to carry this in the parade. Even though, by the time I’d reached my junior year in high school, I had moved on the to trombone, the band director “volunteered” me to carry that damn drum in each Memorial Day parade–six years of it. Now, when I think of Memorial Day, my back and feet hurt. I also emphasize with extremely pregnant women.

Oh yeah, last I checked my hometown, the town fathers had moved the two war memorials to a spot closer to the center of town plus the band is now bused from this new location to the cemetery and back. Boy, today’s kids aren’t going to have as good memories.