Episode 1: Winter Wonderland
My father was what was known as a “huckster.” He supported our family by selling whatever product happened to be available at any particular moment; melons and fruit in summer, grapes for making wine in the fall, and Christmas trees in the winter.
Setting up for the Christmas tree sales was not some haphazard event. About the middle of November, while the ground was still soft enough to pound very large stakes into it, we began laying out the rows of stakes around the entire lot surrounding our home. It was goodbye to Mama’s flower beds, as Papa paced off the exact distance between stakes, no matter where they fell. Older brother Nick was in charge of handling the large sledge hammer for driving the stakes, while my job was to hold the stake upright for him, hoping he would hit the stake and not me. Younger brother Jerry was a go-getter for whoever wanted something, but he always wanted to wield the sledge, and he probably could have done it if given the chance (hard labor and strength were never my strong suits).
After the stakes were in place, Papa then started to string electric lights, crisscrossing the entire front, sides, and back yards around our house. He used red, white, yellow, blue and green bulbs, and we all waited anxiously for him to say it was time to test them. When they worked, we would all cheer at the colorful sight.
About the first week of December, Papa and Nick drove to various tree farms, and came back with a truck load of pine and fir trees. Sometimes Papa bought trees at the siding tracks on Front street, which came in carloads from northern United States, or even Canada. Then, each tree was tied to a stake, so that the buyer could walk all around the tree to inspect it before buying. Prices ranged from $1.50 to $5.00, with what we called church trees selling for $15.00, or whatever Papa said it was worth (only Our Lady Of Mount Carmel, the Italian denomination Catholic church got a free “church” tree, and several small ones—everyone else had to pay!). Once, when a rather nasty woman insulted Papa when she claimed the tree she wanted wasn’t worth the $1.50 he asked for, he dramatically raised the tree and flung it into the fire which was burning in a fifty gallon steel drum, declaring, “Iffa thisa tree no wort one dolla fify, itsa no worth nutting!” She replied by proclaiming him to be “a crazy old man,” and brother Nick quickly jumped in, “Yeah, he’s crazy—you better leave!” She fled the lot quickly.
The snow, the trees, the colorful lights, the glowing fire in a steel drum keeping us warm and the wonderful Christmas music blaring from a 78-speed record player on loan from Ralph (Boogie) Vicarel—our East Side home became a magical winter wonderland. My brothers and I would throw snowballs, hide from each other among the trees, and even occasionally take care of customers. Invariably, sometime in the evening, our sister Martha would call for us to come and get large steaming mugs of hot chocolate and cookies that she prepared for us. Certainly, we were warming up for a very Merry Christmas!
