“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.” ― Percy Bysshe Shelley
“It”s always sumtin”, ain”t it?” – Rico
Long ago and far away…
Things were like the good old days…and as Rico said, Ray lived for the good old
days…
As his wife Katrina was working late at her downtown department store, Peter was
back at the gang’s table in Rico’s American Restaurant and Pizzeria,
“Ray’ll be the only Down and Outer here for Christmas!”
They’d spend the Yuletide as house guests with Katrina’s family in Chicago. Angie
and her family were going to her brother Dean’s Marine Corps base between San Diego and
Los Angeles. Stash and Joey would travel with their nurse girlfriends to stay with their
families downstate. Like The North Star Theatre, Rico would close his restaurant to be with
his family between Christmas and Twelfth Night.
Ray would spend a week with his parents in town. As his married sister alternated
between parents, this year she’d be with her husband’s family, so there wouldn’t be his
niece’s excitement.
“Don’t forget Maynor…”, Joey corrected.
“Words are your forte, Peter…”, Ray pondered, “What’s the one for happy and sad
simultaneously?”
“Bittersweet.”
“Peter’s got a word for everything!”
Angie sarcastically echoed the gang’s sentiment, for Peter always knew the right word
for the right occasion, as well as its etymology.
“Apropos!”, chanted Stash in a faux African accent.
Christmas Eve
One of the lurks and perks of Ray’s job was not only leaving early on the last
workday before Christmas, but everyone was given a week off with pay!
Their office party started at noon with an air of genuine friendship. Their fun
continued as the afternoon passed; everyone left at 2:30 when their boss did. Though Ray had
completed his Christmas shopping, he revelled in the last-minute downtown shoppers”
exhilaration.
His first stop was Rico’s, but the place was swarming with exhausted shoppers getting
off their feet. Rico didn’t notice Ray waving at him because he resembled a silent movie
comedian in fast motion.
The snow fell on the quiet streets enroute to visit his friends Miss Mac and her
adopted son Maynor.
Bittersweet Christmastide in a Winter Wonderland/Romance/J.P. Young/1821
Both were stay-at-homes, as Maynor suffered from hypertrichosis and had the mental
age of a child, though the gang took him out trick-or-treating on Halloween. They were
frequent visitors on weekends; Joey regularly visited them on his weekdaily free afternoons.
In their warm home filled with the aroma of freshly made Christmas cookies, they
exchanged presents. sipped chocolate caliente with cinnamon and hot chilli and sang carols
accompanied by Miss Mac’s harp.
Maynor proudly showed his Frosty the Snowman he created in their high-walled
backyard. Ray happily accepted an invitation to spend another afternoon with them.
He journeyed to his family’s traditional Christmas dinner, gift exchange and festivities
on Christmas Eve as they attended Midnight Mass together and slept in on Christmas Day.
Christmas
Midnight Mass was magical, as a child he loved being out at night. There was a
wonderful atmosphere of mysterious Latin intonements and the choir and organist outdoing
themselves.
This year was more magical than ever before…
He exchanged long glances with a gorgeous woman wearing a traditional veil that
made her blue eyes glow. She was accompanied by an older woman he presumed was her
mother.
He silently requested the Almighty to meet her again…
Afternoon
After the leftover turkey brunch, Ray walked down the white dead-silent shovelled
sidewalks bordered by snow-covered tree branches and snow mountains created by the
snowploughs.
He nostalgically and vicariously watched the children sledding down the hills of
Powell Park, as he did when he was their age. Joey still had his toboggan that the gang used
to join them.
There she was!!!
The blue-eyed veiled woman from Midnight Mass was looking at him again.
“I wished I could see you again, and my wish was granted! I’m Ray.”
“I’m Patricia. I wish I was young again to join the sledding!”
“Hey, Kiddo! Wanna earn a buck?”
“Who do I have to kill?”
“Let us use your sled! You’ve got the biggest one!”
“Deal!”
“You’ve got to be joking, Ray!”
“Christmas is when wishes are granted! Mine was!”
She shook her head.
Bittersweet Christmastide in a Winter Wonderland/Romance/J.P. Young/1821
“I know what I”m doing! Don’t embarrass me in front of my old neighbourhood!”
The kids gathered around and made chicken noises.
“You sit in front; I’ll steer and use the brakes!”
Pat followed Ray’s instructions for seating, he had his arms around her. She didn’t see
him demonstrate his feet were the only breaks on the Flexible Flyer…
“C’mon! C’mon!” the kids shouted.
She screamed like a joyous banshee as their combined weight made them zoom like a
moon rocket! The kids cheered their ride to death or glory.
Ray slowly but surely steered the Flexible Flyer away from the ravine at the bottom.
They approached a snow drift and flew in the air, landing as Ray kept turning on the level
ground until their momentum finished on the snow plain.
They stood up and pulled the sled back as the kids wildly cheered.
“It’s a world’s record!”, the sled owner shouted.
Pat gave the boy a dollar of her own, everyone was jubilant!
“Want another go, Pat?”
“Once is enough is my motto! Nothing’s as much fun the second time around.”
They walked home; she said she lived in Des Moines and was visiting her aunt for a
week.
“When can I see you again?”
“I’m busy with my aunt in the mornings and evenings, so afternoons only.”
“That’s the best part of a winter’s day! What would you like to do tomorrow? Polar
bear hunting?”
“A polar safari! I can well believe you’d take me on one! I’d love to skate, but I
haven’t any.”
“What’s your shoe size?”
In Yuletide synchronicity, Pat was the same shoe size as his sister, whose old skates
were in their parent’s attic.
“Do you know where Victory Park is? Their tennis court’s a rink. What time can you
be there?”
“Twelve forty-five!”, Pat kissed him on his mouth, they embraced, “Never say
goodbye…say…see you tomorrow…”
St. Stephen’s Day
Ray came half an hour early.
Pat was bang on time, attired in a red wool Royal Stewart skirt with matching tam and
scarf, winter fleece-lined tights, and a white turtleneck sweater that flattered her figure.
Prince Charming’s sister’s skates fit Cinderella perfectly.
Bittersweet Christmastide in a Winter Wonderland/Romance/J.P. Young/1821
They skated clockwise in a circular procession evocative of Victorian times; some
showboats went to the middle to do fancy manoeuvres. She was better than Ray at skating,
they both laughed at his clumsiness.
Ray chickened-out in joining Crack-the-Whip, where the brave and the bold skated in
a circle faster and faster and faster until they shot into the tennis court’s fence. All
delightfully cheered!
“I’m dying for hot chocolate.”
“Follow me!”
Time stood still in the snowbound street deep in winter silence. A wave of euphoria
swept over Ray; he began crooning Winter Wonderland.
When he finished, she beautifully sang the final verse of Try to Remember.
They exchanged childhood Christmas reminisces at the North Avenue Delicatessen.
“When can I meet your auntie?”
“That’s not possible; don’t ask me why. I want to spend as much time as I can with
her, but she sleeps all afternoon; soooo, things work out well for us.”
“What would you like to do tomorrow?”
“My aunt and I are going shopping in the morning downtown…but a girl can’t have
enough shopping. How would you like to take me for some more?”
“Sounds fine, but for a change of pace, how’d you like to go to Lake Forest?”
“I’ve heard of it…”
“We’ll meet at the Chicago Northwestern train station. Set a time.”
He walked her back to her aunt’s street, but Pat didn’t want him to go to her house.
“She wouldn’t understand…”
“Doing anything New Year’s Eve? My parents would love to meet you and your aunt!
We’ll wear dinner jackets. Can you two dress up?”
“Sorry, I’ll be back in Des Moines…See you tomorrow?”
They sealed their rendezvous with a long kiss and warm embrace.
The Third Day of Christmas
As always, well-dressed Pat was prompt. The mundane became magical with a special
person…
They rode the Great Lakeside train, indulged in the imperative hot chocolate then
shopped at Marshall Fields and elsewhere.
Snow fell, silence deepened, the sun faded…hours passed quickly as they always did
when you had a wonderful time.
On the streetcar back to her aunt’s home and Ray’s neighbourhood, he pointed out his
downtown apartment.
Bittersweet Christmastide in a Winter Wonderland/Romance/J.P. Young/1821
“What’s up for tomorrow afternoon, Pat?”
“I’d love to see your apartment!”
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…
Ray kept his flat clean, so had no embarrassment showing her his “downtown digs”.
She fell in his arms…
They made love the entire afternoon, she was experienced, but not overly so…It was
among the greatest days in his life.
“Tomorrow I’ll be with my aunt the entire day visiting friends.”
“I’ll see you again before you return to Ioway?”
“Your call for my penultimate day here, Ray…what would you like to do together?”
“Skating!”
“Then wait at the same rink at the same time the day after tomorrow…”
The Fifth Day…
Ray’s parents wanted to see a film together.
In the crowd at the Genesee Theatre was Pat, with her aunt and an older man; Pat now
wore a wedding ring.
The two expertly ignored each other…
The Sixth Day…
Pat didn’t show up…
He doubted she’d come to say goodbye, but he’d always regret if he missed her.
Would she have showed up if he hadn’t seen her? Or had she planned to keep him
waiting in mystery?
The day after tomorrow never comes…
The icy chiller-diller winds of despair burst off Lake Michigan at 3 as they always
did. He’d been so pre-occupied with happiness that he hadn’t noticed them the past few days.
His mind repeated their viewing each other at the theatre; there was nothing more to
say… They only spoke of their childhoods or their recently shared past; the future was never
mentioned.
There were those who regarded lovemaking as the beginning of an affair and those
who regarded it as its end…
The taletellers of the high school locker room and National Guard armouries would
think Ray got the best of the deal. Ray wasn’t a storyteller when women were concerned…
On the other hand, what if Pat was free and made him her own? Would Des Moines
be another Bismarck with his new wife turning into another domineering monster?
The winds of hopelessness seemed to blow him through the twilight to his church
where he first saw her. He sat alone in the mysteries of ecclesiastical architecture.
Bittersweet Christmastide in a Winter Wonderland/Romance/J.P. Young/1821
Wasn’t it Tennyson who said,
“Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?”
He recalled her singing, Without a hurt the heart is hollow…
Bittersweet…
FIN
Bittersweet Christmastide in a Winter Wonderland/Romance/J.P. Young/1821
* * *
The sad part was being without his gang.
being at once bitter and sweetsledding.ly : pleasant but including or marked by
elements of suffering or regret
a bittersweet ballad
bittersweet memories
December 1960 Calendar
Holidays and Observances: 24: Christmas Eve, 25: Sunday Christmas Day, 26:
“Christmas Day” day off, 31:
Meets woman at skating rink, sledding, soldiers with Maynor, Korea Patrol, what
does he pick out, A Child”s Miss Mac recites Stevenson Keepsake Mill
Years may go by, and the wheel in the river
Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day,
Bittersweet Christmastide in a Winter Wonderland/Romance/J.P. Young/1821
Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever
Long after all of the boys are away.
?. Goes back to university
Sometimes it”s the unexpected meetings that are the most memorable. Ray had been
invited to his parents for dinner during the week. No sooner had he arrived at his childhood
home after walking from the North Avenue streetcar in the cold December evening, his
mother begged him to walk back to the North Avenue Rexall drugstore to have her
prescription filled.
“Buy yourself a soda!”
It was mother”s reward for doing things for her that she carried on since Ray”s
childhood.
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in
madness.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
* * *
Bittersweet Christmastide in a Winter Wonderland/Romance/J.P. Young/1821
Fritz Beinke Rodelnde - Kinder
They pushed the sled to the steepest part of the slope…
A Bittersweet Christmastide in the Winter Wonderland
Christmastide of the Bittersweet
Rodelnde Kinder by Fritz Beinke