Big Bob, Christmas and the Year of the Bike

 Christmas was always memorable with my Dad. Big Bob (as his grandchildren called him) was in his glory at Christmas.  He was not one to dangle light bulbs all over the outside of the house or put a cardboard Santa and sleigh on the roof, but inside that great big heart, bells jingled, tinsel sparkled and the world was covered in fluffy white snow.

I blame myself and the Great Depression.

I was born on December 25, 1947.  I believe that there has not been as big a snow on Christmas since then. Mother started her contractions on Christmas Eve and Dad took her to the York County Hospital (later Piedmont Hospital). He stayed with her until late in the afternoon when Dr. Settle, Mom’s Fort Mill doctor, told him to go home and get some rest because nothing would happen that night. Mother was feeling better and encouraged him to go.

Dad made his way home and tossed and turned through a fitful night. When he woke up on Christmas morning, it was cold and rainy with a little sleet mixed in. By seven a.m. Dad was ready to go, and as planned, walked to my grandfather’s house and borrowed his second-best car, a 1939 Plymouth sedan. Fort Mill streets were deserted at such an early hour on Christmas morning. He drove up highway 160 past the Fort Mill Plant (The space is now occupied by the Walt Elisha Walking Park) and out to Highway 21 toward Rock Hill.  Now known as Cherry Road and lined with businesses, Highway 21 took him almost to the hospital. As he reached the outskirts of Rock Hill, the rain and sleet changed over to large snowflakes.

There were few businesses on Cherry Road in 1947 and even fewer open on Christmas morning but Dad found a small diner and had an early breakfast.* Before he arrived at the hospital, the snow began to accumulate.

Dad opened the curtains of Mom’s hospital room and together they watched it snow. I arrived late in the afternoon during the first Christmas snow Dad had ever seen. Mother’s first groggy question was “Is he pretty?”  I guess we all know the answer to that.

Dad was a child of the Great Depression and a member of what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. In the small mill towns of the South, the Depression held its grip until World War II brought the work force back to life. Dad, born in 1923, was six years old when the markets crashed. There was simply never enough money when he grew up. His parents were careful and kept food on the table and decent clothes on his back.

There was nothing left for luxuries.  In Dad’s young mind, the ultimate luxury was a bicycle. It was what he wanted more than anything but he was never able to have a new bike.  He and the boys in the neighborhood scrounged enough parts to build a no-frills communal bike that he got to ride sometimes. 

I believe because of his disappointments as a child, Dad made sure that Christmas in his house was joyful and bountiful.

The currently fashionable tree is artificial and tastefully decorated with just the right touch of color. Not so for the Hill tree. About the fifteenth of December, Dad and I would put on old, warm clothes and select a tree from the area called Spratt’s Bottoms down next to the Catawba River. We would select and reject tree after tree until we found the one that suited Dad. He would cut the tree and we would drag it to the car, tie it on top, and take it to our house on Gregg Street.  Once Dad nailed the tree to its stand in the den, his job was complete.

Mom loved decorating the tree as much as Dad loved drinking his eggnog while he watched. She would turn the tree to select the best side.  Every tree had a good side and a bad side. After wrapping as many lights as possible around the fresh-cut cedar, every ornament of every color was hung by Mom or Dad, my sister Connie or me in haphazard glee. No tree was complete, however until the foil tinsel was strewn on every limb. With the decorating done, Dad would complete the ceremony by plugging in the tree lights whose colors were reflected in the wide eyes of the Hill family.

Christmas, in the first few years of my memory, were shared with our next-door neighbors, the Davises. Bill and Irene Davis had two boys: Michael, who was a year younger than me and Billy, who was a couple of years older than my sister Connie. We would gather at either house for dinners or visits. Mom and Irene were both exceptional cooks so dinner at either house was a treat. 

The earliest Christmas Eve I remember was at the Davis house on Gregg Street. I was about four years old and Michael was three. Connie and Billy were not yet on the scene. Under their tree was a bounty of wrapped packages and since I couldn’t read, I assumed they were all for me. All this and Santa had not yet visited. Christmas was the only night of the year when Michael Davis and I were ready for bed by seven o’clock.  The sooner we got to bed, the sooner Santa would bring presents. Dad kept me up as late as possible in the forlorn hope I would sleep later on Christmas morning, a strategy that never worked.  Even as an adult, I was up before sunrise waiting for my children to awaken.

Dad had to go out on that Christmas Eve and make a delivery for Kimbrell’s store where he worked part time. He told us that someone was getting dining room set for Christmas. Dad must have been gone about half an hour when there was a knock at the door. Bill Davis questioned who would stop by on Christmas Eve but when he opened the door, I knew who. Santa Clause had stopped by to see us before getting started on his big night. He came in looking like every idea I ever had of him.  Red suit, white beard, black wide belt and a deep “Ho! Ho! Ho!” laugh.

Santa sat with Michael and me, one on each knee and asked if we had been good boys. Like every boy, I answered yes but remembered every transgression of the past year. Santa said he knew we were good and cautioned us that he could only come by later if we were asleep. With that, Santa was out the door and Michael and I were awestruck. I couldn’t wait until Dad got back so I could tell him about the special visitor he had missed. When he returned about half an hour later, he could hardly believe us when we told him about the visit. I assured Dad over and over that it was the real Santa, and though I didn’t understand it at the time, it was.

My sister, Connie, requires her own story.  She is six years younger so our earliest memories are very different. One thing we agree on is Christmas.

I am not sure I have ever slept through the night on Christmas Eve. Since Christmas is also my birthday, the excitement is doubled and the night is so much longer. From the time I realized that Mom and Dad, let’s say, helped Santa on Christmas, I tried to hear the sounds of toys being put under the tree or doors opening and closing as the parents brought the Christmas bounty out of hiding.

I never caught them but later in life Dad told me there were nights he thought I would never go to sleep. Dad had the most giving spirit and loved everything about the season from the decorations to the fruit cake. There was always fruit cake…not that store-bought brick of dry crumbly stuff but the real thing. Mother and Irene Davis would get together one day in early December and chop candied cherries and pineapple and walnuts and create their incredible fruit cakes in bundt pans. Dad who was no cook, would ceremoniously pour the rum while I sneaked candied cherries at every opportunity.

The only thing Dad did not like about Christmas was getting up early on Christmas morning.  Because of my crazy sleep patterns, Dad would get started late putting out Connie’s Barbies or my toy guns and would pass the waiting time by eating Santa’s cookies and drinking a bourbon or three. 

Every year my sister and I had to nag and beg our father out of bed. We would awaken at 5:00 or 5:30, unable to sleep with the promise of mystical riches only a room or two away. Every fifteen minutes or so, though it seemed like hours, we would call out, “Is it Christmas yet?” Again and again he would tell us to go back to sleep. We wouldn’t dare slip down the hall to take a peek. Dad was an ex-Marine sergeant and while gentle by nature, he believed children should be obedient.

Once he finally gave in, the battle was not over.  Connie and I would drag him, boxer shorts askew, toward the hoped-for treasure that waited in the still-dark den. That year’s cedar tree, like a storybook dragon, stood guard over the hoard; its hundred eyes flashing red and green and yellow.

Mother was easier. As soon as Dad stopped protesting and allowed the dawn, she would pad into the kitchen and begin to conjure up the irresistible aroma of coffee, bacon and biscuits.

Even in defeat, Dad knew the effectiveness of passive resistance. He would mumble up the hall shuffling the heels of his worn brown slippers. His agonizing slowness kept my sister and me constantly bumping into each other and into Dad’s backside as we jostled for position. Upon finally reaching the den, he would sit in sleepy dominion while my sister sifted through the jumble for anything pink or fluffy while I searched for chrome six-shooters and “army stuff.”

We were overindulged.  Mom and Dad were children of the depression who had lived through lean Christmases. They did what many parents do every year. They would put out the presents before Christmas to inventory what they had.  If one of us seemed to have more than the other, it was back to the store. Connie and I would create a whirlwind of open boxes and paper until we had worked our way through our bounty. Connie was wiser and less greedy than I was.  One Christmas, amid the frenzy, Connie stopped unwrapping and sat looking at all the toys.  When I handed her another package, she said what I believe no other child has ever said at Christmas. “I don’t want any more!” There were tears rolling down her cheeks. 

My sister always underestimated herself.

I didn’t know about the great depression or about Dad’s aching for a bicycle during his childhood when at ten years of age, I asked for a bicycle for Christmas. Dad was not a spendthrift and at this point in his life was just lifting the family into the middle class through hard work. I was in for a real surprise on my tenth Christmas.

I woke up early again on that Christmas morning and Dad, as always, told me to go back to sleep until a decent hour. On most Christmases he was lucky to keep me in bed until six-thirty.  This Christmas, when I called out at about six am, I was surprised to hear Dad start to rise.  Connie, my partner in crime, was still asleep and I had to wake her up. 

Mom did her usual scurry into the kitchen to start the coffee percolating.  Dad, however, was also on the move.  He told us to stay in our rooms until he was in the den. Then called us in.

I have no idea what my sister got that Christmas, but I will never forget the bicycle. There, in the middle of the den was a brand-new, cherry red and black, 26-inch Roadmaster Luxury Liner bicycle. Equipped with headlight, rear carry mount, and motorcycle-like tank, this beauty seemed to glow in the light of the den. Oh, I had a bike already; one of those “help me learn” embarrassments with little glamor and less glory. This bike was made to cruise “no-handed” by a girl’s house.

I was ready to ride but was still in my pajamas and Mother was calling us to breakfast.  Mother’s “Depression Gravy” over biscuits soon made me more patient. As we sat at the table, Dad, always first at breakfast, lingered over the bike touching the shiny red fenders and then the burnished chrome of the handlebars. His eyes glistened and his expression seemed far way.

I did not know then that twenty-five years had evaporated away and that there, standing in the place where my father had stood, was a boy. A boy disappointed Christmas after Christmas during the Great Depression was finally touching the bicycle of his dreams.

 *See a more complete account of Dad’s trip to the hospital in his book, Listen My Children.