SHEETS FOR CHRISTMAS [W, 12-17-25]

 

SHEETS FOR CHRISTMAS

John Robert McFarland

 

[Continuing the series of stories that I wrote originally as sermons for Christmas eve services. Again, beware of reading time. 4000 words instead of the usual 500.]

 

John White's clod-hoppers started to drag in the fine dust. He had been walking most of the day. First it was the eleven miles to Meadville to borrow the book from Doc Hollywell. He and Doc had shared a pot of coffee and a pouch of burley. Then it was the eleven miles back home. Five of those still gapped out ahead of him in the gray of the early December twilight. He had been reading as he walked.

         "I'm getting too old for this," he muttered to himself, as he finally closed the book against the failing light, sticking a square of faded cloth between the pages to mark his spot.

         The cloth was ripped from the sheet that had shawled his little Maggie, his youngest daughter, as she died in his arms. She had been now dead for many years, but he held her close in the arms of memory.

         John White believed in memory. He trusted in memory. He was sure that life was mostly memory. He remembered Maggie every day as he moved the sheet rag place markers in his books, page by page. John White read most of every day, so he remembered Maggie a lot.

         Memory was what he and Doc Hollywell had talked about that day as they chatted in Doc's consulting room, while a shaft of late-afternoon sunlight challenged the cloud of coffee steam and tobacco smoke that enveloped them.

         "I worry about these pieces of cloth you use for book-marks, John," Doc ventured. "I can understand you wanting to remember Maggie, but I'm not sure it's healthy for you to face every day the very sheets she died on. It almost seems like you're punishing yourself, every day remembering about how she died."

         "No, that's not why I use the sheet pieces, Doc. It's because when Maggie died, that was the very last time she was alive. I want to remember all of her, right up to the very end. Otherwise I'm short-changing her memory."

         "I think maybe you're putting too much into memory, John," said Doc, slipping the words in between sips from his heavy white coffee mug and puffs on his truly disgusting briar. "Like all those history books you read. A person can't live in the past."

         "You're how old now, Doc, about sixty?"

         "Sixty-two," the doctor replied, with the air of a man who was pleased to be alive at all, rather than envious of those who had yet to live as long.

         "Sixty-two," echoed John White. "How much of that is memory?"

         "Well, I don't know, John," said Doc, scratching his head with the stem of his pipe. "I can remember a good deal of it, I guess."

         "No, no. I don't mean how much of it can you remember. I mean, how much of it is past?"

         "Well, all of it's past, you ninny, except for right now, of course, and whatever's yet to come. By hokies, John, you're wading through the long grass again."

         Sometimes Doc was exasperated by John White's line of reasoning. John White was the smartest man Doc knew. Why, with all his smarts, he couldn't get to the point any easier than he usually did was beyond Doc's figuring.

         "I'm wading through the long grass because I have to or I can't get to the swamp you're sinking in," replied John White, equally exasperated that a man with a formal education had to be led by hand into the halls of logic. "All your life except right now is in your memory. That's where you live it. If you've got no memory, you've got no life, even if you're as old as sixty-two."

         John White thought Doc Hollywell was pretty old. He was only sixty-one himself.

         He remembered their afternoon conversation now with satisfaction. It was satisfying to have a friend who felt free to call you a ninny, even if it were not an accurate description. John White knew from his reading that a ninny was a fool or a dolt. He might be a bum, as most people said, but he certainly was not a fool. He preferred to think of himself as a curmudgeon.

         He sighed a non-curmudgeonly sigh as he tucked the book under his arm and set his face for home. He didn't mind the walking as long as he could read as he walked. He always saved the last 150 pages of a book borrowed from Doc for reading while he walked to Meadville to return it. He also tried to read the first 150 pages as he walked from Doc's office to his home near Coal Town. He usually returned a book the day after he borrowed it.

         These short December days, however, did not cooperate with his reading schedule. Now he had five miles to go, and it was too dark to read. Well, perhaps he could entertain himself by assaulting famous quotes, a favorite game that no one, not even his wife or Doc, knew about.       

         "Trudge on, MacDuff," he muttered. "I have not yet begun to read. I only regret that I have but one book to read in the country. To read or not to read, that is the question. I came, I saw, I returned the book the next day...."

         He was so engrossed in the process of unarmed robbery of Bartlett's that he had been staring at the glow in the woods for over a quarter of a mile before he realized it was out of place.

         He was walking the old Shake-Sheet road, now almost abandoned. The Old Jeff coal mine shafts honey-combed the entire area; it was all undermined. Most of the houses along the road had begun to shift and sink, and the road itself was suspect. Hardly anyone was willing to take a chance on driving a rig or wagon on the Shake-Sheet. Besides, there wasn't much reason to do so with no one living on it. John White liked to use it, however, because he could concentrate on his reading or his quoting without being bothered by folks who wanted to stop him for a chat.

         This glow back in the trees.... What could that be? It was in the general direction of the old Brooks place. "Ham" Brooks had built his place well off the road to keep his eight boisterous sons from bothering folks as they drove by. It had not worked, so "Ham" and his wife, "Beanie," eventually had to move out of the county.

         John White didn't have much ambition to go back in the woods toward "Ham's" old place. The house was about half sunk in, and it was totally overgrown. There were all kinds of potholes and sinkholes and boulders and vines and no telling what else back in there to trip a man up or pull him down. Besides, he had Doc's book; didn't want to take a chance on something happening to it. Nonetheless, the glow should not be there. It almost had to be a fire.  

If it started spreading, it could really get out of control. This was the warmest winter that anyone could remember. In addition, November had been a remarkably dry month, and the first week of December not much better. The fire didn't look too big, yet. If it were contained down in a sinkhole, maybe he could put it out. He was still thinking all that when he realized that he had already started back toward the light in the woods.

         "Well, might as well go on back since I'm already going," he thought.

         John White was so used to walking as he read that his feet often made decisions for him.

         He worked his way into the woods very quietly, not because he was trying to be quiet, but because he was trying to avoid stepping in something or on something that might prove disastrous. Thus he made it all the way to the edge of what used to be "Ham's" yard with hardly a sound. It turned out to be a darn good thing that he did, too, for as he peered around the corner of the sinking old house and into the big square where "Ham" had kept the creatures that gave him his name, he saw a sight so amazing he could hardly believe it.

         There, where "Ham's" hogs used to root and snoot, were about a dozen men. At least John White had to assume they were men. He could hardly tell for sure. They were covered with white sheets, even their heads. They had cone-shaped caps of sheet over their heads, with little holes for their eyes, but none for their mouths. John White thought that was strange but later realized they thought that talking through the sheet would disguise their voices.

         The glow he had seen was a fire, all right, but one like he'd never seen before. It was a burning cross, right there in the middle of "Ham's" hog lot, not very tall, and not burning real well. One of the sheeted figures was trying to help it along with a torch and a string of curses, but neither the torch nor the epithets seemed to help much.

         John White's mouth dropped open so wide a squirrel could have run in. He'd heard about people like this, "white-cappers," who crept about at night in disguises, burning crosses and haranguing colored folks, claiming they were true Christians who were only trying to save the nation. He'd even read about them. He had no idea, however, that they actually existed in his own environs.

         The hooded characters slouched about in a vague circle around the cross, except for one. He stood in sheeted splendor right in front of the cross, if you counted "front" as the direction facing toward where John White now spied on them from the trees along the edge of the hog lot. He was an especially big man, judging from the expanse of sheet billowing around him. He had to do a little dance whenever the man with the torch got near him, to keep his billowing sheets from being set on fire. The man in front of the burning cross began to speak.

         "You'uns know why we's here. Them Dickersons got to be run out the county. We've tried to be nice to 'em, tried to git 'em to go peaceful like, and they ain't paid no more mind than you would to an old hound dog. Now we got to take action!"

         The voice started out on a note of high anxiety and managed to achieve a falsetto whine by the time the speaker finished. John White could tell the man was trying to whip his troops up, but doubted that his voice would stir up much action. There was something familiar about that voice, though. John White began to riffle through his memory pages to see if he could spot it.

         "Aw, the Dickersons ain't so bad," said another voice from somewhere in the circle.

         "Yeah, 'bout the only thing's wrong with 'em is they's niggers," chimed in another.

         Still another voice added, "And they's the only ones in the county. Don't cause no harm, really."

         The leader set his fists into his hips, arms akimbo. His sheet stretched so far that John White could no longer see the burning cross. There was just a marginal glow around the man, making him look something like a giant, fading lightning bug.

         "So, that's how much you know!" he squealed, in the sort of high screech that had been heard many times before in that very place. "If you'd read 'The Klarion Kall,' like you're spose to, you'd know what happens when you have even one bunch of niggers around. Pretty soon they start actin' like they's regular folks. What you gonna do then? Besides, we told 'em to leave and they wouldn't. You can't let people you push around act like it don't matter to 'em. That ain't American."

         "Well, it ain't really like they pushed back or nothin'. Old man Dickerson said they'd like to oblige us but they just didn't have no place to go."

         It was still another voice, one that had not yet spoken. John White was getting the idea that the hooded followers were along mainly in order to get out of the house and have something to do at night. Action was apparently something they hadn't exactly counted on when they signed up and bought their sheets.

         John White began to wonder about a lot of things.  What was "The Klarion Kall," and how could he get hold of it? It sounded like fascinating reading. Why had he not heard anything about the Dickersons being visited by these sheeted visions and told to get out? Well, who could the Dickersons tell? For all they knew the men under the sheets might include the sheriff or a county board member. John White didn't know any more than that himself. Who were these men, anyway? Probably men he knew. All the voices sounded familiar, but he just couldn't place them.

         His pondering was interrupted as the leader took up his cause once again.

         "We been through this over and agin. Ain't no more talkin' to be done. They's got to go, 'cause we don't want 'em here. That's reason enough."

         A new voice arose from out the crowd of sheets.

         "He's right. We all agreed to this, so let's git on with it. Go ahead, Bone."

         The huge leader flapped his sheeted arms up and down, like some prehistoric albatross trying to get up enough power to crash.

         "Don't do that!" he squealed. "You know never to call a brother by name when we're in uniform."

         "Oh, forcrysakes, Bone. Whointhells gonna hear us out here?"

         "Who, indeed?" smiled John White to himself from behind the bole of a white oak tree.

         Things were beginning to fall into place for him now. The leader of this particular pack was "Bone" Brooks, "Ham" Brooks' oldest son, named after his father, christened as "Hambone," but now apparently going by the shortened form of his name. It did not surprise John White, who had never expected anything good to come out of a family that was named for pork. It also explained why they were meeting here, on the old Brooks place.

         "Bone" Brooks puffed himself up, like he wanted to argue some more about proper etiquette when men gather while dressed like pointy-headed ghosts. He wisely decided to take advantage of any opening he could get, however, before he lost his audience entirely.

         "Awright, then. We'll do it on Christmas eve, since you marvels is too lily-livered to do it in front of the Dickersons, which'd be much more better, since then they'd know for sure that it wasn't no accident and be too scared to ever show themselves in the county agin, which is the way it properly oughta be. They'll go to the Quakers for Christmas eve, like they always do. They has service early, so we can git out to their place, burn it down, and be back in time to git to the Christmas eve services at our own churches. No one'll have any idea who it was that done it."

         "I wonder how come the Quakers let niggers come to service anyway?" some vague voice wondered.

         "Ah, hell," someone answered, "the Quakers'd let anyone come, long as they didn't say nothin'."

         Everyone laughed, but John White was already thinking, so he listened to the rest of their plans with only half an ear. He had heard enough of the voices to have a pretty good idea who was in this group and who was not.

         Christmas eve, and they were going to burn a family out, so they would return from church and find they no longer had a home. You can't get much lower than that, thought John White, than to run around in a disguise on Christmas eve and.... A plan began to form in the back of his brain.

         He waited until the sheet-shrouded figures doused their cross and slipped away behind the barn, apparently having left their horses or buggies or whatever they'd come in at the back of the old Brooks place, which abutted the canal road.

         Then John White made his way back to the Shake-Sheet road and walked home, his step lighter and lighter. He almost skipped through the winter dark, buoyed up by the plan that was growing larger and more compelling with every step he took.

         It was just a little over two weeks to Christmas eve. During that time, John White seemed to be everywhere. People saw him walking through the streets of town, up and down every county road, out and back again, and the same the next day. He always carried a book with him, but unlike his usual peripatetic opsimathy, now he did not seem interested in actually reading as he paced along. Instead he was downright garrulous, stepping out into the roadway to chat with passing drivers and riders, going into houses along the way, staying long enough to have a real conversation.

         "Must be the Christmas spirit has even gotten to John White, that old bum," folks said, as they commented to one another on the wanderings of the only professional reader in their midst.

         He was almost always "that old bum" in the social structure of Coal Town, since he read instead of working. John White himself saw his social status as a distinct advantage, especially now, in the days before Christmas. Folks would talk about his unusual routine, but no one would take it seriously. It masked what he was doing, for some of the conversations he had along the roads and in the houses were not just general visiting, although they certainly did have to do with the Christmas spirit. No one seemed to notice that he visited a whole passel of Baptist deer-hunters and Catholic seamstresses. By the time Christmas eve came, John White's plan was ready.

         So, of course, was the plan of "Bone" Brooks and his porky brothers and their cohorts of the sheet. Well, the plan was ready, but a great deal of organization was not evident. As soon as it was dark, they gathered at the site of "Ham's" old hog lot.

         "Let's burn a cross and have a nip before we go," suggested one of the brothers of the sheet.

         "We can't," said another. "We's only got one cross, and we need it to burn at the Dickerson's."

         "Hell, ain't no point in draggin' the durnfool thing clear over to there," replied another. "It'll be burned up by the time they get back from the Quakers."

         "No better'n you gits them things to burn, it'd still be there even if they'd been to the moon."

         The hooded speaker guffawed considerably at his wit.

         "Well, then, how'll they know it was us?"

         "They'll know. Who else'd do it?"

         "If we'uns all go in the wagon together, like we said, won't be no room for it none, anyhoo."

         Finally the whining voice of "Bone" Brooks cut in.

         "So, that's how much you know. We don't have time for none of that stuff. The Quakers might let out early, if the Spirit don't move none of 'em. We gotta git over there and git it done. Besides, the cold's finally comin' in."

         "Bone" was certainly right about that. The winter cold, held off by the most prolonged autumn anyone could remember, was even at that moment beginning to cut through the leafless branches as the wind moaned in the gathering dark. The sheets that had previously seemed so protective were now only thin veils against the December night.

         Finally they compromised. They left the cross behind, unburned, but took the jug with them in the wagon. As one of them said, "If a man cain't burn a cross to keep him warm, he ought at least to git a fire in his belly."

         By the time they reached the Dickerson's house, they were feeling pretty light in the head and pretty cold in the body. The wagon pulled up in front of the house and disgorged its load of sheet-covered figures. After the jostling in the wagon and the fire-building in the belly, none was particularly steady on his feet.

         They had all managed to get themselves and their cans of kerosene out of the wagon and headed toward the house, however, when a voice rang out of the darkness and echoed around their pointed heads.

         "Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas!"

         "Whathuhell..." someone started to cry out from amongst the sheets. Before he could finish whatever it was that he tried to start, a match flared, and then another, and still another, little pin-points of light all around them.

         The matches were touched to pine-knot torches. Suddenly the sheeted figures were caught in a circle of brightening light, torches surrounding them, set in the forks of tree limbs, stuck down into old pieces of machinery, on the tops of fence posts, pushed into the ground. In the light, they could see....

         "Ohmigod!," muttered one of the hoods as it swiveled unsteadily to look around the circle of lights. "I'll never touch the jug again, I swear it...."

         For there, standing beside a flaming torch, was Santa Claus, red suit and white whiskers set comfortably above clod-hopper shoes, with a double-barreled shotgun in his hands. Around the circle, one beside each snapping torch, were Santa's helpers, all with huge white beards and green felt hats and funny brown "britches," and all carrying shotguns, just like Santa himself.

         (If John White had been describing the circle to Doc Hollywell in Doc's consulting room, he would have reminded him that "circle," in Greek, was kuklus.)

         Even through the narrow slits and the wavering light, you could see the eyes of the sheet-wearers get as big and as round as the shotgun muzzles on which they focused. If they had been able to look up from the weapons at the faces of Santa and his helpers, they would have seen nothing but beards.

         "Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas!" chortled Santa once again. "You're just in time to help. We were bringing presents to the Dickersons here. Nice folks, but they've hit on hard times. Need bed clothes, especially. If you kind fellas would just put your sheets there on the porch, and leave your kerosene cans on the ground there, why, they'd make right nice Christmas gifts."

         Santa pointed both barrels directly at the pile of sheet under which Bone Brooks now shook with rage, indignation, cold, and fear.

         "You, you,... you can't do this," squealed Bone. "We're in uniform. We can't take off our sheets. Nobody's allowed to see our faces."

         "Ho, ho, ho! So that's how much you know. Don't you think Santa recognizes you, Bone Brooks, and your porky brothers and all the others, too?"

         Bone Brooks literally staggered when Santa threw his own favorite phrase back at him and called out his name. Bone and all his cohorts seemed rooted in their places by the impossibility of it all.

         One of Santa's helpers moved out toward the Christmas eve raiders, shotgun at the ready.

         "Do what Santa says, you sheet-heads. It's gittin' cold, and we gotta visit all the good boys and girls yet."

         Mechanically now, and shivering as they did it, the men left their kerosene cans and trudged up to the Dickerson's porch and stripped off their sheets and dropped them into an untidy pile. They ducked their bare heads against the cold and the eyes of Santa and his helpers. Santa knew there would be no more trouble from them; they were now known to the men behind the beards, but they had no idea who it was who knew them. As the torches began to burn down, they hurried out to their wagon as fast as dignity allowed and drove off into the dark of the night.

         Santa turned to the forces of Christmas. "Thank you, gentlemen," he said. "It was good of you to come out on Christmas eve to assure that the Dickersons have sheets for Christmas. Now, I am sure we all have other places to go."

         "What'll we do with the suits and the beards?" asked one of the men.

         "Oh, might as well hang onto them," replied the man in the red suit. "Christmas comes every year. Maybe some time we'll be able to use them without the shotguns."

         That seemed to please the helpers. They tucked the guns up under arms and began to hurry off. Only Santa and one of the helpers remained. The helper pulled a foul-smelling briar out of the pocket of his green coat and lighted it with a twig touched to the last torch left burning.

         "Come on, 'Santa,'" he said. "I'll carry you back home."

         "Just a minute," replied Santa. "I'm going to get one of those sheets up there. I need some new book-marks, and I think this is a Christmas I'd like to remember."

 

 

 

A HOOSIER CHRISTMAS--1954 [Sun, 12-14-25]

 

[Continuing my series of Christmas stories that I wrote as sermons for Christmas Eve worship services… Since I intended to pull them into a book called The Years of Christmas, the date for each was part of the title. Beware, this one is long—4000 words instead of my usual 500 for this column.]

 

A HOOSIER CHRISTMAS--1954   

John Robert McFarland

            It was three on two. I was almost good enough to be on the short side of an odd-man game, but not quite. It was David and John and me against Philip and Kenny. We were beating them and crowing about it.

            "Aw, man...," they whined. "This doesn't mean nothin'. It's only 'cause you've got three guys. Two on two, we'd take you any day."

            They had a lot of pride at stake. They were twelve; John and I were just eleven, and David was only nine.

            It would never have occurred to us to leave one "man" out for a game so the sides were even. When you played, you played with what you had--the kids, the weather, the court. Those were just the variables; no one really cared about them. The game was the thing. All you really needed was the ball.

            We played in snow storms with mittens on, in rain so hard we couldn't see the basket, in heat so intense we couldn't grip the ball because of the sweat running down our arms. We played in rutted hog lots, in garages so narrow that every shot was from the corner, against barn sides that threatened a concussion every time you dared to drive to the basket. We played with fathers, cousins, uncles, friends, strangers. We played wearing stocking caps in winter, straw sombreros in summer, clodhopper high-tops or pointed-toe "street" shoes or four-buckle galoshes or P.F. Flyers. We played "horse" and "pig" and odds-and-evens and shirts-and-skins. We played when the only others out were "mad dogs and Englishmen," when the moon was high enough we could see the rim and when it was so low we could judge if a ball were in or out only by the sound.

We played basketball. We were Hoosiers.

"Ha!" David grunted. "You couldn't take us with a ten-foot pole and the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons to boot."

            "When I get a ball to practice with, then you'll wish you were in the morgue," I predicted.

            I had two obsessions that year--the morgue, which figured prominently in the radio mystery shows we listened to on Sunday afternoons, and getting my own basketball.

             I started a drive for the basket that ended with the first bounce as the ball hit caromed wildly away. Kenny's barnyard was never smooth enough to return a dribbled ball anywhere near the player who tried it, and the early December freeze had hardened every rut and hoof-print into concrete.

            "Big talk," yelled Philip, grabbing my boot-ball and heaving it in the general direction of the bank-board. "You could practice all day and not hit the side of a barn with a twelve-gauge shotgun."

            "Yeah, you could practice all day and still not be able to catch a cold."

            We played basketball with our feet and with our legs and with our hands, but especially with our mouths.

*********

            I walked the two miles home from Kenny's house. The dark was gathering earlier every night as we headed toward the shortest day of the year. Normally the darkness hid a whole rag-tag army of fears and dreads. They were accompanied by a sound-track of wind in dead sassafras leaves and echoes of my own steps on the hard-frozen gravel. Tonight, though, I wasn't even thinking about the anxieties that normally dogged my steps in the dark. I felt good.

I had been on the winning side, even if it had been three on two. Better yet, Christmas was coming, and I knew I was going to get a basketball. Having your own basketball defeats a whole host of fears.

*********

            We didn't play basketball during recess at school. Only the older boys got to do that. There were just two baskets, and unless you were in the seventh grade you were never chosen for the ten-on-ten melees that churned over the broken blacktop like a cat-and-dog fight in the funny papers. We younger boys pitched washers and commented on how poorly the chosen twenty played.

            "Shit fire," exclaimed Kenny. "If I couldn't shoot any better than that, I'd quit school and move to Kentucky."

            "Those guys don't know whether to shoot or get off the pot," smirked Philip.

            "They never even heard of defense," muttered John.

            "If I had my own ball, they'd wish they were in the morgue," said I.

            Of course, none of these comments were stated loudly enough that they could be heard either by Mrs. Mason, as she made her rounds of the playground, or by the seventh grade boys as they profaned the art and drama of basketball.

            Since sixth graders and lesser life forms could not play at school, and since I did not have my own ball, I could participate in the magic only by going to the home of one of my friends when I knew they were getting a game up. That was not easily done. We lived in the country and did not have a car. Sometimes, if my father did not need the horse for farm work, I could borrow a saddle from Mr. Heathman, our closest neighbor, and ride "Old Prince" to where the action was. Old Prince, however, was almost always hitched to a wagon or rake or cultivator or plow. So, I walked--a mile or two or three.

********

             Being the newest kid on Jimmy Bigham's bus route, I got the seat over the hole in the floor, which corresponded with the window that was stuck in the half-open position in the winter and the half-closed position in the spring and fall. It was a great air-conditioning system, except that in hot weather the air was laden with dust, and in the winter it circulated a chill breeze that was often laced with slush. From that strange vantage point I watched them, the boys and their basketballs. It seemed that every boy in the county had a basketball of his own. That is, every boy in the county but me. They would be shooting baskets when the bus pulled up in the morning. Some of them even had backboards that existed for the sole purpose of basketball, rather than doubling as the side of a barn. That was impressive! When Jimmy gave his impatient two hoots on the horn, they knew they had been seen and could now casually toss the ball aside, letting it lie there and wait until the bus returned them in the evening. Then I would look back and watch them as they scored two or six or even ten points against some imaginary foe before the bus had even pulled out of sight.

            "If I had a ball of my own, you'd wish you were in the morgue," I would grumble at them, but to myself.

            How could they be so cavalier about those balls, I wondered, just leaving them outside all day like that?  Probably even left them out all night, to be sure there would be no hold-up in the morning when it came time to shoot again. Certainly wouldn't want to be caught with no ball to shoot when the school bus was coming. If I had a ball of my own, I'd take care of it, and I certainly wouldn't show off with it, not me! I'd practice and practice, in secret, and then suddenly I would appear on the scene, shooting shots that no one had ever seen before, becoming a star before they even knew I had a ball. Ah, but first I had to get my hands on one of those "marvelous, magical spheroids" for myself.

            We actually talked like that, even when we played.

********

            "Toss me the spheroid," Philip would yell.

            "If you want the golden globe, learn to rebound," came Kenny's retort.

            "Intercept that projectile," John would instruct me.

            "If I had a rounded ellipsoid of my own, you'd wish you were in the morgue," I said.

            We had little idea what those words meant, except for "globe," but we learned them because we were avid readers of "The Great Scism," [Dan Scism] who wrote the sports column to which we were addicted. [We had learned about The Great Scism of 1054 in history class, so naturally…] For some reason, the sports writers in our time and place felt it was a loss of face to refer to "the old pig bladder," as a ball. They would try anything to avoid calling the "mystical balloon" by its given name. Reading them gave us a well-rounded education. We learned history, mythology, folklore, music, astronomy, science, Bible--all from the pages of the sports section. Furthermore, we thought those were the words that normal people used about basketball, so we spoke them as we played, dribbling the "majestic moon" through hog manure, shooting the "amazing atom" at the side of a barn. Needless to say, we also learned the allure of alliteration.

            My entire vocabulary was shaped by the ethos of basketball. I recall listening to Paul Burns, the local postmaster and a lay minister, preach one Sunday morning in the Forsythe Methodist Church. "Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner," was his text. I heard it as "Lord, have mercy on me, a center." I listened carefully to the sermon but could not figure out why centers were more in need of mercy than guards and forwards. This was especially disturbing since I was growing fast and assumed I would be a center.

            To me, they were all wonderful words, because they all meant basketball. I ran them over in my head in the hard cold of that dark December evening, savoring them as I walked home, for I knew, as sure as I could be, that I was going to get a basketball from Uncle Ted and Aunt Nora for Christmas.

********

            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 made and 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, 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 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."

********

            On January 2 we went back to school. On the school bus John and Kenny and Philip and David asked me where I'd been during Christmas vacation, why I hadn't come around with my new ball so we could all play together. I told them I had been too busy to play basketball, farm work and all that.

            "Ha," said Philip. "I'll bet he's practicing by himself so he'll get good and put us all in the morgue!"

            They all laughed. Right then I would have loved to see them in the morgue; it could have saved me a lot of embarrassment. I smiled weakly, trying to indicate that he was right. Better to lie to my friends, I thought, than to try to explain about the basketball that was not a basketball. It would have been disloyal to my family to disparage the gift I had received, but I could not bring myself to let anyone else see that "gruesome globe."

            Nonetheless, it was all I had, so after school, when the bus had disappeared over the hill where dead sassafras leaves shook listlessly in the winter wind, I would take the ball out of its box, carefully kept out of sight beneath my bed, and I would go out to the barnyard and heave it toward the rim on the barn.

            I never learned to drive to the basket, because I could never dribble with that ball. I could not shoot a normal push shot from outside, because the ball was so light that the wind would carry it away. (Only an occasional "freak" from New York shot the new-fangled "jump" shot. "The Great Scism" and other sports writers assured one and all that it would never have a place in the game because a shooter had to have at least one foot on the floor to be able to control the flight of the ball.) Instead I developed a two-handed "set" shot that was pulled back behind my head and then hurled on a line directly at the backboard just above the rim, as hard as I could throw it. The force of the throw and the low trajectory combined to defeat the wind. I couldn't even lay it in, because the barn side was too rough for the light ball, and it would carom off in any odd direction.

            Other than my "throw" shot, about all I could do with that ball was stand with my back to the basket and twirl for a one step "curl" shot or twist around for a hook shot. I learned to vary the arc on the hook according to the wind. When the wind was strong I shot a line drive that barely cleared the rim. When the wind was gentle, I faded away and arched the ball high. I learned to shoot those shots with either hand. It wasn't really that difficult; the ball was light enough and small enough that I could grip it easily.

            I never had another ball of my own, until I was seventy years old, and I never let anyone else see that Christmas basketball. I continued to walk to the homes of my friends for games. When I reached seventh grade, I got to use the balls on the playground and in the gym. I was never the great player I dreamed of becoming. My skills were too limited. More importantly, my confidence was limited. When I was a teen-ager, however, and later in college, there were games when I dazzled the opposition with an array of hook shots and an indefensible overhead throw shot.

            "Where in the world did you learn to shoot like that?" people asked me. I never said.

            Twenty-six years later I was doing graduate work at the University of Iowa. It was the last day before Christmas break and I was in the field house "shooting around" with a friend. We weren't working hard at it; after all, we were approaching forty years of age. Only a few others were working out. Most students were getting ready to go home for the break. A few players from the university basketball team were there, however, out on the main floor, scrimmaging on their own.

            "Hey," they yelled at Fred and me. "We need two more guys. Come on over."

            "Good grief," I muttered to Fred. "That's suicide. Look at the size of those guys! We'd better just stay right here."

            "Aw, come on," he said. "How often do we get to play on the big floor?"

            One thing about basketball players: they never lose the lust for the big floor. We went.

            I was assigned to play opposite a young man I had only seen on television before. He was a product of inner-city playgrounds, so fast he could "turn out the light and be in bed before it was dark." He stood six inches above my six feet and one. He had the widest, happiest grin I think I have ever seen, and it got even wider as he looked at me.

            I was "shirts" and he was "skins," which made him even more intimidating. Muscles rippled on him like waves on a tawny sand beach.

            The shirts had the ball out first. Instinctively I set up just to the right of the basket. Some foolhardy guard threaded a needle pass between somebody's legs and it hit me in the hands. My only thought was to get rid of that "specious spheroid" as quickly as possible. I twisted right and hooked. Swish! Everybody stood around for a moment; it had happened so fast, and it was so unexpected...

            Then the skins had the ball and my man drove for the basket. I lunged, thinking I might at least be able to tackle him. He was too fast; I couldn't even get the back of his pants as he went by.

            Our turn. I set up again. This time I hooked left. He was caught defending on the wrong side. Swish!

             Everything I shot went in. No shot was like the one before it. I couldn't stop him, but he couldn't stop me. Back and forth we ran. I went outside and hurled my overhead shot. I went inside and hooked with either hand from either side. He drove around me or shot his jump shot over me. The other players set picks for us and fed us the ball. It was one-on-one with a supporting cast.

            "Give me that rotund orb," I shouted at my fellow shirts.

            "Man, you talk weird," came the voice from over my shoulder.             I could not see him, but I knew he was grinning.

            "Look out when I get that bulbous roundel," I exulted, "or you'll wish you were in the morgue."

            I could feel it! This time I didn't even bother to look at the basket. I just flipped it over my head. Swish!

            "Man, you are too old for this," he teased. "You gonna be in the morgue from a heart attack. You from a different century!"

            "You should be ashamed, letting an old guy score on you," I shot back. "I don't even have a scholarship."

            "Can't give scholarships to guys over a hundred," he informed me.

            I was pleased to see that the game was still played with the mouth.

            At fifty to fifty the game was called. It was time for Christmas break. We staggered to the drinking fountain.

            He held the pedal down while I put my head under the stream and drank. Then I held it down for him. He drank as I gasped. Finally, we just stood there, on either side of the fountain, heads down, fists grasping the legs of our shorts, searching for oxygen.

            By the time I thought I might live through it after all, he looked up and grinned and said, "Man, you're the baddest dude I ever saw. Where'd you learn those moves, anyway?"

            "Indiana," I gasped.

            "I should have known it! You played at IU!"

            He said it as though it were an accusation of unfair competition, as though I had pulled a fast one.

            "No," I said, my heart rate slowing down to about 300. "Not on the IU team. That's just how I learned when I was a kid."

            "Man, you must have been some bad kid."

            "You ever get a basketball for Christmas?" I asked him.

            "Sure," he replied. "Played with it all the time."

            "Must have been the wrong kind," I said. "You gotta have a really bad ball to learn to play where I come from."

            "Yeah," he grinned. "A bad ball. I gotta get me one of those."

            "Do that," I told him, “or you'll wish you were in the morgue."

            Then we went home for Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

OUT OF PLACE ANGEL [R, 12-11-25]

 

THE OUT OF PLACE ANGEL--A.D.

John Robert McFarland

[Mentioning my story about the out of place angel in the column for 12-8-25, reminded me that I have a copy of it that I could share. It’s 2000 words instead of my usual 500, but, if you have the time, it’s a fun story.]

            "Miranda, for heaven's sake, get up here in the front row where you belong."

            Gabriel, the Archangel, and Director of Special Music for The Heavenly Host, heaven's special choir, tried to sound gruff.  It's not easy to sound gruff if your voice is heavenly, however, and Gabriel had a most heavenly voice.  He also had a special affection for Miranda, the little front row angel, and he almost always ended up laughing whenever he looked at her. 

            Miranda was always out of place, and everything about Miranda was out of place.  Her wings were usually on upside down.  Her angel-hair gown was inside out.  She either wore her halo as a bracelet or used it as a hula hoop.  Her halo always fell off when she put it on her head, because Miranda flew around so fast it couldn't keep up.

            "But, Gabriel, we like to have Miranda back here with us," sang a thousand heavenly bass voices from the back row.

            "I know, I know," sighed Gabriel, "but Christmas is coming, and we must be ready.  Miranda will have to be in the front row or she won't be able to see me wave my wings to direct the heavenly host, and she'll get the words out of place.  Besides, I want her where the shepherds can see her.  I don't think they'll be afraid if they see a little angel like Miranda singing to them.

            Reluctantly the basses handed Miranda down to the tenors, who handed her to the altos, who handed her to the sopranos, who handed her to Gabriel.  Miranda grinned all the way. Gabriel placed her in the front row, a row of one, just for her, right in front of where he was directing the heavenly host.

            "Now," he said, "I can keep my eye on you."

            "What's a Christmas?" asked Miranda, angelically. 

            "Not 'a' Christmas, Miranda," corrected Gabriel.  "This is 'the' Christmas, the first one.  God is going to send Jesus to earth, to be born there as a little baby, to live with the earth people and the earth animals and the earth itself and to teach them how to live well.  We have to announce it on earth when it happens."

            "All right, Host," he continued, "let's see if we can get it really loud this time."

            Gabriel turned to face an imaginary audience and joyously proclaimed his solo part:  "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

            And suddenly there behind Gabriel was The Heavenly Host, including Miranda, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among people with whom God is pleased."

            Miranda shivered with excitement.  It was going to be the greatest thing that ever happened on earth, and she would be a part of it!  She silently mouthed the words along with Gabriel on his part; they had practiced so much that she knew them by heart.

            She could hardly wait, but Christmas was not quite ready yet.  There were many other preparations to be made.  Also, the choir could not just practice all the time.  The regular routine of heaven had to go on.  There was harping and listening to the prayers from around the universe and silently encouraging the creatures on all the planets to do good.  Of course, Miranda had her own special pursuits, such as playing horseshoes with her halo.

            Wouldn't you know it?  One day Miranda was rolling her halo down one of the streets of gold and it hit a bump and just sailed away.  She went running after it, but it was rolling so fast it seemed like it was aeons before she caught up with it.  (An "aeon" is a very, very long time, almost as long as an eternity.)  Then she was so tired when she finally got it that instead of flying back on her own, she waited for a cloud that was going her way.  When she got back, heaven seemed very quiet. Only the seraphim were around.  A seraph is one of the very most important of all the angels, so important that it has three pair of wings.  All of the seraphim were always happy to chat with Miranda, though.

            "Where is everybody?" she asked one of the seraphim.  "Why is it so quiet?"

            "Why, it's Christmas time," said the seraph.  "Gabriel and The Heavenly Host have gone to earth to announce the birth of Jesus as one of the earth people.  Say, Miranda, I thought you were in The Heavenly Host."

            Poor Miranda!  Out of place again!  She was supposed to be in the front row of the choir that was announcing the birth of Jesus, and here she was, stuck in heaven.  She peeked over the edge of a cloud.  It was getting dark down on earth, and she thought she could just make out the glow of The Heavenly Host as it started for its one night stand in the world.

            Then, an idea came to her!  She could go fast, so fast even her halo could not keep up with her.  Why, she would just fly down to earth and get there before they started singing and be part of The Heavenly Host yet!  She grabbed her halo and jumped off the cloud and started flying to earth as fast as her little wings would carry her.  As she flew, she sang her part over, so she would be ready.

            Then, she remembered that she hadn't listened very carefully when Gabriel told the choir about where they would be going.  What was the name of the town?  B...  It began with a 'B,' she was pretty sure of that.  Well, she knew they were supposed to make the announcement to shepherds.  She would just find the town that had the name that began with 'B,' and she would look for shepherds, and that was where The Heavenly Host would have to be.

            Finding the choir did not turn out to be as easy as Miranda thought, however.  She went to a town where the name began with 'B.'  Bombasa was its name. She found some men who looked like shepherds.  They were black.  They seemed to be watching creatures that were more like gazelles than like sheep.

            "Have you seen The Heavenly Host around here?" she asked them.

            "No Heavenly Host around here," they replied.  "Who in the world are you?"

            "Well, I'm not exactly in the world," said Miranda, "except for right now.  You see, I'm an angel, and I have a special message for some shepherds."

            "Well, we're shepherds, sort of.  What's the message?"

            Miranda wasn't sure if she should give the message unless Gabriel and the choir were there, too, but what if they had gotten lost?  Without the message, Christmas would never come.  So she decided to go ahead and give it.  After all, she knew Gabriel's part and the choir's words, too.

            She recited all of it to the black shepherds, about not being afraid and about glory to God and peace among people and the baby.  When she was done, they applauded politely, but they looked a bit skeptical.

            "Where is this baby, anyway?," they asked.

            "Isn't this the town that begins with a 'B'?," asked Miranda.

            "Yes," they told her.  "That's Bombasa there."

            "Well, then," she said, "You just go in there and find a new-born baby that's born in a manger, and you'll have the right one."

            Miranda left them and flew around the world a little more to see if she could find Gabriel and the other angels.  She did not find The Heavenly Host, but she did find more towns that had names beginning with 'B.'  Miranda became confused.  What if Bombasa were not the right one after all?  So she stopped at every 'B' town on earth. 

            At Bahrain she found Arab shepherds in long flowing robes.  At Bavariaburg she gave the message to white shepherds dressed

in wolf skins.  At Beijung she talked to yellow shepherds.  In Bali-Bali she sang to brown shepherds who wore grass skirts.  At Bama-tuma she proclaimed the message to red shepherds, who watched over great herds of sheep that looked just like buffalo.  Oh, there were many more 'B' towns, and Miranda went to every one of them.  Wherever she went, she sent the shepherds into the nearby village to look for the newborn babies, telling them, "There you'll find God's Christmas present to you."

            Finally dawn was beginning to break, and Miranda was exhausted.  She had flown and proclaimed and praised God and given directions all night.  She could hardly move, but she caught onto the tail of a high wind that was going her way and just let it pull her back home.

            When she got to heaven, a big party was going on.  Gabriel and the choir were singing heavenly songs, and every angel in the place was dancing around just having a great time.

            "Well," thought Miranda, "they must have heard about the way I saved the day for them.  It's a good thing I got there to earth, since they obviously lost the way and didn't get the message proclaimed."

            When Miranda walked into the party, Gabriel suddenly stopped the singing and stared at her.

            "Where in the world have you been?" he asked.  "It came time for Christmas, and you were out of place, so we had to go on without you."

            "Oh, don't worry," replied Miranda, with a wave of her wrist.  "I went to earth and found out you missed the 'B' town, so I did it for you."

            "You did what?" asked the entire Host of Heaven together.

            "I went to the 'B' town and told them about peace on earth and God's present to them."

            Miranda was beginning to feel a little uneasy.  She did not know if she should tell them she had gone to all the 'B' towns.

            "You did what?," cried Gabriel.  "You weren't there.  We went to Bethlehem and proclaimed the message, like we were supposed to.  We didn't see you."

            Bethlehem!  That was the name of the place.  Oh, oh!  Poor Miranda...  out of place again...  It was the one 'B' town she had missed.

            "Uh, I'm pretty tired," said Miranda.  "I think I'll just go take a nap..."

            "Wait a minute," cried Gabriel.  "What 'B' town did you go to?"          "Well, actually all of them," admitted Miranda. "Except for Bethlehem..."

            Gabriel and the rest of the angels just stared at her.  They could not believe it.  How could she, when God's gift to the world had been so carefully planned?  This one little angel had messed up everything, by being out of place, as usual!

            Miranda began to cry.  She knew what they were thinking, and they were right.  She wasn't a good angel.  She was always out of place, and now she had done everything wrong and ruined God's surprise.  She took off her halo and started to trudge off to the farthest star in all the universe.  "At least I can't do any more damage way out there," she thought.

            Then a voice echoed through the heavens.  It was very loud, but very soft.  It was very deep, but very high.  It was very strong, but very gentle.  It was the voice of God.

            "Where are you going, little Miranda?," asked the divine voice.

            "I'm going where I won't be out of place anymore," sniffed Miranda.  "I ruined your whole plan for earth and Christmas because I went to all the wrong places.  I'm sorry."

            "Oh, ho, ho," laughed God.  "Miranda, by getting out of place, you did everything right.  You're about thirty earth years too soon, maybe, but that's all right.  My gift is for all the people on earth, everywhere."

            "But I sent them to all those babies," sobbed Miranda.  "They'll think every one of them is your special Christmas gift.  How will they know the true one?"

            "Every one of those babies is my special Christmas gift," said the voice of God.  "There is no baby that is out of place, Miranda.  Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in my sight.  You proclaimed the message everywhere, Miranda, so maybe you did it better even than Gabriel and the choir.  Perhaps I should make you Director of The Heavenly Host."

            "Oh, no," cried Miranda, running to Gabriel and linking his big arm with her little one through her halo.  "That's Gabriel's job.  If I did that, then there would be no one to do my job."

            "Uh, I hate to mention this, Miranda," came the voice of God, "but just what is your job, anyway?"

            "Why, being out of place, of course," smiled Miranda.

            God and all the hosts of heaven laughed for eons and eons.