Welcome to The Nomad - the place where you can sit back, read, and take a trip back in time. Here, you'll find a trunk load of memories. So, bring along the popcorn, pop open the back, and lean back on your pillow and enjoy! If you'd like to submit a story for The Nomad, please email me at .

Contents:

Two Thoughts for Today | Christmas Memories | What Are You Doing, Dad?

Two Thoughts for Today - by Ellenor Olson

October starts with a blaze of color. As the month progresses, the beautiful fall foliage color fades to tan. Then the leaves fall off the trees. By the first of November, a large cloud cover blocks the sun. The trees are bare branches. The air is chilly. I don't get to see the sun for six months. Sometimes there are sunny days in winter, but not too many.

I hate to see the fall color fade. A low grade depression comes upon me as the cloud cover blocks the sun. Then comes the morning after the first snowfall. I wake in my bedroom, full of light. The snow covers the ground, reflecting light into my room. I have flashbacks to being a little girl, awakening to the same sensual event....snow light.

There is peace in remembering being little, waking in my bed and seeing the all white world out side my window. Mom and Dad are in the house and all is right with the world. I remember the room, the Priscilla curtains that my mother had hung, the smells of breakfast, the creak and groan of the furnace, sounds of people moving about, starting their day. For a moment, I don't have to get up. The little girl that was and the adult that is, doesn't have to do anything but enjoy being warm in bed and feeling cozy.

The second impression is of letting something precious go. There is a stage of life where I have watched those older than me, die. Parents, aunts and uncles, the neighbors, favorite teachers. Even movie stars of my generation are dying. They don't know who I am, but the movies were important to me. Those personalities on the screen played a big part of my life. I knew the actors and actresses, as if they were my neighbors. Their adventures on the screen were my escape. When they die, they leave a big hole in my life, the same as in the lives of all of their other fans. Not only in the movies, but personalities in the news die. Kathryn Hepburn, Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly.....wonderful models of successful womenkind. As they leave the earth, a page turns. We're on a new page, unfamiliar. There is no alternative but to cope with the new...stepping into unknown territory.

I am living in a strange world....this "today". I don't relate to the music on the radio. I don't want the latest electronic gadgets. Buses and mailboxes are disappearing along with the front porch that used to be on every house in my neighborhood. Hair styles and fashions are messy. There are no sidewalks next to the road...and what happened to neighborhood schools? Home cooked meals? Where are all the kids I went to school with?

My neighbor, age 86, has called me. His truck won't start and he has errands to do. Will I drive him? Of course I will. We arrange to eat breakfast together at Maxine's...the local diner. A. comes too. My neighbor is in decline. He loses breath easily. If I don't raise my voice to speak to him, he answers, "what? What?" He loses his balance when walking and walks too slow for me. F. joins us at the diner. F. is also in his 80s. The four of us talk. Mostly the two older men talk about what the town was like before I got here. The fields are gone...taken over by a housing development. Where there was a seed company, is now a mall. There used to be a lot of blue crabs in the bay. Now there are only a few. Same thing for lobster. You can still catch bass, but better not eat a lot of them because of mercury poisoning.

My neighbor has lost over 30 pounds this year. His face is wrinkled. His hair is thin. He is frustrated that He can't fix his truck. He used to be able to fix anything mechanical. Is it the new engineering? He complains about being constantly cold. In the car, I make a point of turning up the heater. There are projects all over my neighbor's house. He states He would like to complete this one and that one. Defeated man, the projects sit and collect in his house. We both know He will never finish them.

Comment:

Hello,

I read your blog about two thoughts tonight while I am waiting to ring in the new year.
My past year has brought about many changes for me. However, as I reconnect with old friends (I have recently divorced), I realize the same things you were saying about losing old friends. In my case, we just had our 35th Highschool reunion and I've learned about more classmates who are no longer with us.

And now I feel like the old 80 year old man you wrote about who has too many projects and not enough time left. However, I am reconnecting with my past and I am finding more wonderful web sites like [this one] on the web. It's a fair exchange. And I've even found a girlfriend on the web in Massachusetts! (1000 milles away from me)

Just wanted to say how I like your writing.

D.N.

Christmas Memories - by Ellenor Olson

One can't live without collecting a lot of memories. I see my past and compare it to my present. How the world has changed. How the celebration of Christmas has changed. How I have changed.

I used to be an organist - choir director when my children were little. Richard and I taught Sunday School. He was a deacon in our church. I remember a Christmas Eve service. I ended the service by having the choir stand at the back of the church. All the lights were turned out except the Christmas tree and lights at the altar. The choir sang Silent Night. It was so beautiful and peaceful.

When I was a child and believed in Santa Claus, there was not a sign of Christmas on Christmas Eve. No presents. No tree. Nothing. My sister and I would go to bed, so excited we could not sleep. Our parents locked the door that separated the bedrooms from the public spaces. There was no way we could spy. When we got up on Christmas day, there was Christmas! It had appeared overnight. Stockings full. Christmas tree decorated! Our tree was always a real tree.

In memory, I can still smell the pine needles. Presents under the tree! My Dad's train running in a circle under the tree...and traditional special ornaments on the tree. My sister and I looked at the ornaments until we found the chicken and the ghost ornaments, but that is another story. There was tinsel on the tree...not the mylar stuff. Ours was made of aluminum foil. If it fell on the train tracks, it would short out the train. The only time the train was set up, was from Christmas day until New Year's day. In memory, I can still hear the sound of the train.

The night before, we made cookies. A plate was set out for Santa along with a glass of milk. In the morning, the snack was gone. Proof positive that Santa was real and had come down our chimney. Christmas music played from the radio. I had memorized the poem, "'Twas Night Before Christmas". I can recite it today, if you ask me to.

First thing was the stockings. No, we did not have the kind of Christmas stockings you can buy in the store. We hung up stockings we wore all year around. Who had the biggest feet and the biggest stockings? My Dad, of course. So, all of the stockings that were hung from the mantle (fake fireplace) were my Dad's. We used nails to attach them to the mantle. So my Dad had four socks with holes at the top from the nails.

The stockings were filled with oranges and Life Savers. They might contain a box of crayons, gum, a paddle ball. They contained walnuts, a whistle. We made a mess all over the livingroom rug of orange peels and bits of walnut shells. No one bothered to make breakfast on Christmas morning. Breakfast is candy ribbon and oranges. I am half sick from eating all that sugar, but it is Christmas, so who cares! At the very bottom, in the toe of the sock, is a piece of coal. You have to be good, or Santa will bring only coal, no presents. When my girls were little, I told them they had to be good, or Santa won't bring presents. He will fill their stockings with coal. My youngest one said, "What's coal?"

Richard and I got such a kick out of this. We had to walk a railroad track to find a few pieces of coal that fell off the coal car. No one heats their house with coal any more. We put a piece in each daughter's stocking. B. was so intrigued with it, she saved it as a treasure.

I see my parents' faces as they watch us open everything. We rip into our presents. The paper and ribbon litter the floor. When all is opened, my mother gathers the trash and throws it away.

I see my daughter's faces as they open their presents, an experience that doesn't change, even if the gifts change over time. I gather the wrappings and throw them away.

During World War 2, metal was diverted to the war effort. My gifts were made of cardboard or wood with a silkscreen image on it. I loved my cardboard doll's highchair. I loved my baby doll and her clothes. When I laid her down, she would close her eyes. I had a stuffed bear...a panda bear, jacks, roller skates, a sled, balls, a top...but not all in the same year. I had a play kitchen with china dishes and board games. Richard reports he got an erector set and I remember Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs...good building experiences for children. Not one of my toys required batteries or an electrical outlet.

The entire day, in fact the entire Christmas vacation was spent playing with my new toys. We went outside and made a snow fort, or went sledding. We built a big hill of snow and poured water over it to freeze it slick. Then we used our sled on our hill. That kept the entire neighborhood busy for the entire vacation.

Dad was busy stoking the coal furnace, gravity feed hot air upstairs. He would take ashes from the furnace and sprinkle them on the sidewalk so passers-by would not slip. I wish I had ashes for my icy walk today...not the chemical stuff.

I remember one Christmas Eve, my sister and I just could not go to sleep. We were jumping on our beds. My parents came in several times to tell us to go to sleep. (After all, they had all the work ahead of them to set up Christmas for us after we fell asleep.) Finally a monster man stuck his head in our door and looked at us. We were shocked into silence. Our eyes went big as saucers. We were cowed into settling down. Years later, my Dad admits that it was he in the mask. The mask was a Santa Claus mask, but it couldn't have been a very good one, because it scared us .