A HOOSIER CHRISTMAS, PART II OF IV
12-20-16
Scroll down to read Part I first.
They knew what I wanted. It was no secret. They had asked, and I had told them. They had no children of their own and were
marvelous about giving their nieces and nephews what we asked for. Besides that, they owned a general store,
which meant that whatever we wanted was probably in stock. The only possible glitch was that I had
reached the age of "practical gifts," underwear and flannel shirts
and blue jeans and four-buckle galoshes.
Those they had in great supply in the long, glass-fronted cases in the
dry goods section of the store. Not
being parents, however, they were likely to give a practical gift or two to
appease our parents and then go ahead and give us what we asked for as
well. They were the relatives of every
child's dream. My brother and sisters
and cousins and I were blessed not only with Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora, but with
dozens--literally--of grandparents and aunts and uncles whose generosity was
just like theirs. Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora, however, were the ones I was
counting on for the basketball.
Most of the relatives sent their
gifts or brought them by in the days before Christmas. They were piled under the Christmas tree,
awaiting the grand opening on Christmas morning. Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora lived only a few
miles away, however, so they liked to bring their gifts by in person, to share
in the excitement as we ripped open the packages while our mother tried to get
us to slit the paper neatly so it could be folded and stored and used again
next year. Ours was not their only stop,
so we were never sure exactly when they would come.
So it was early afternoon on that
particular Christmas day before they arrived.
I was already dressed in a practical gift or two and just hanging around
in the front yard, in the uncommonly warm winter sun, waiting for them. I could hear their blue Ford, the one with
the trunk big enough to hold gifts for all the basketball players in Gibson
County, before I could see it. When it
topped the rise in the road, it was all I could do to keep from jumping up and
down. They pulled into the driveway, and as they got out of the car, they were
right in line with the new iron rim my father had already mounted on the side
of our barn. It was a perfect picture
for Christmas day.
By the time they got the trunk open,
the rest of the family was there, and we all helped carry in the wondrous array
of happy packages. Mother was sure they
must be tired by now and should have some coffee and Christmas treats before
anything else, but Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora knew that they were not there to
drink coffee, at least not yet. They
started handing out packages, and we children opened them as fast as we got
them. Although Uncle Ted had been a high
school basketball star himself, in the days when he was the high point man in
games that ended in scores of six to four--literal “barn burners,” since they
really played in a barn--they had no idea how much having my own basketball
meant to me. Consequently there was no
special drama as they presented that particular square box to me; it was just
one in a line of presents they were handing out.
I suppose that was what saved
me. They were still handing out gifts,
and everyone else was opening gifts, each person concentrating on his or her
task.
I ripped the paper from the box and
saw the picture and the word, in bold black letters on an orange
background. No mistaking what this
was! It did not say "stupendous
spheroid," but that was all right.
It said basketball; that was good enough. I gently lifted up the hinged lid of the box
and looked down at what lay in a bed of thin tissue papers. My wish had come true. I had a basketball.
It was not, however, the basketball
I had pictured. All the boys I knew had
vulcanized rubber basketballs with pebble grains and deep, black lines between
the sections. They were a bright
reddish-brown in color. They were easy
to grip. They bounced high and true, at
least on a smooth surface. But the ball
in the box before me was an old-fashioned basketball, with a big, black
bladder, and an inch-long inflating stem sticking out, and thin, light tan
sections sewn together with white thread, so that some of the sections were
depressed and some were upraised; it looked like a crazy-quilt. It was a basketball for little kids, or old
men, maybe.
I hoped my face did not betray my
disappointment. I don't think anyone
noticed. There were still more presents
to open. I set the ball aside and opened
up packages of underwear and socks. I
was happy to see them. They gave me something
to do while I tried to make sense out of what had happened. I had received the gift that I wanted more than
anything in the world, but it was not what I wanted. What was I going to do now?
Each of us got to hold up our gifts
and thank Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora for them.
I was truly thankful. They were
good people, as good as any I would ever know, and they had done me the honor
of listening to my desire and doing their best to fulfill it. They had probably been tremendously pleased
that they had something on their store shelves that I wanted, probably felt
that it had been waiting there for a long time just for me, and they were glad
to give it. I was glad to have it, too,
because it was a symbol of their love and a symbol of belonging to this big,
generous family that made me feel at home in a world that often tried to make
poor kids feel out of place. But it
wasn't the "magical moon" of the sports columns.
"Well, if you'll excuse me, I'd
like to go outside to play with my new basketball," I said.
Everyone smiled. On snowy Christmas days, kids were supposed
to go outside to play with new sleds. On
sunny Christmas days, they were supposed to go outside to play with new
basketballs. I needed to do the proper
thing for the day. I hoped no one could
notice my lack of enthusiasm.
I went to the barnyard. I threw the ball up toward the rim. The light breeze caught it and veered it off
toward the chicken house. I ran after
it, picked it up, and started to dribble back toward the barn. On the first bounce the ball hit with the long
inflating valve down and bounced crazily away toward the coal shed. I tried again, being sure the valve was
up. The ball hit the ground flush and
bounced back up about six inches. I
couldn't shoot it and I couldn't dribble it.
"If I had a real ball," I
said to it, squeezing it as hard as I could, "you'd be in the
morgue."
PART 3 OF 4 TOMORROW
JRMcF
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