I sat down twice this morning and tried to compose this story and in both cases I got to within the last couple of words only to see them vanish into etherspace. I think that the story is worth telling and I have to get it down while the pain is still fresh. Here goes, maybe the third time is the charm. There are a few things in this world that should never be combined, Vodka, wine, beer, peppermint Schnapps, fire ants. They should be enjoyed separately and on different days. This year we decided to defy the known laws of the universe and combine Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. It sounds like a simple concept until you actually try to put it into effect. The rationale was very simple. It is the only time during the upcoming holiday cycle where we can all be together even if it is for a short time. First of all the children have to travel from distant parts of the land. They were following the very bright star in the East. They were seeking the Baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger. What they found instead were 2 ATVs wrapped in an old Boy Scout Tarp and laying in a utility shed. After a brief round of Hello’s and How are you’s they hopped on the ATVs and went roaring off toward the top of the mountain. The view up there is world class and the weather was very nice so they were gone a long time, taking pictures and posing like deranged Daredevils. When they finally came down Phoebe was ready to go back out right away so I agreed to take her up the drainage to the goat farm up Dry Branch. This is another one of those beautiful rides that go way back up the mountain through some spectacular scenery. At some point on the way back down the mountain we decided to start racing each other. I do not remember all of the details but I know that we were going faster and faster. Suddenly I came around a sharp curve and Phoebe was stopped in the road to allow a car to pass on the 8 foot roadbed. I hit the brakes but got nothing. I slammed on the foot brake but there was no response. I tried to pull my thumb off of the accelerator but my oversized glove was caught and I was starting to go even faster. I reached up to downshift but there was no time left to avoid a collision. At the last second I steered as far to the right hand side of the ditch that I could and missed Phoebe by millimeters. I screamed as I went streaking by. “PHOEBE!” She did not even realize that I was having a problem. I was moving at about 25 MPH. That does not sound very fast unless you are riding on a machine of guaranteed death and dismemberment. After I did a few very impressive fishtails I was able to stop about 50 yards down the road. My first thought was “what happened to my hat?” My second thought was the realization that there are a thousand ways that this could have gone very wrong. If she had been over another foot or so my only option would have been to rip through a barbed wire fence that ran along the road. When I went up and looked at that spot later I saw that any other spot in that stretch would have killed me graveyard dead. I will tell you that for the rest of that day the birds sang a little sweeter and I hugged my children a lot more than normal. Turned out that there was a leak in the brake lines and there was no fluid. Phoebe came up with the great idea of taking everyone up to the Cass Railroad as her Christmas gift to the family. It was a wonderful trip but it was bitter cold. The baby was drooling and the drool had hardened into little ice cycles. The engineer kept blowing his Whistle which was a thunderous noise. The baby’s little frozen eyeballs got wider and he looked around as if to ask” What in the Hell was that? It was the first time I have been on that trip when it was not packed. Thank you Phoebe, it was a much better gift than another box of Chocolate covered cherries. After the train we decided to swing through Snowshoe resort and hit the Starbucks up in the village. However the place was shut down like a church on Tuesday. We ran into a staff member who said that it would be closed until it got cold enough to start making snow. I started to point out that it was already snowing for real and with the wind blowing it could not get a lot colder. Another great view but we could watch all of the peaks around us vanish in a cloud of snow and deep grey clouds. We spent most of that day trying to get the circulation restored to our fingers. We played a Friend’s trivia game that only had 200 questions which we were quickly able to memorize. We watched the Hunger Games on the TV and we just enjoyed hanging out as a family. We had to be careful not to get too loud since the Baby was sleeping. Virginia has this wonderful booming laugh that will wake babies and dead people from 300 feet away. The next morning we got up to link sausages and pots of coffee. ( A Family tradition) We unwrapped few basic presents and decided to wait until my mother arrived to unwrap the rest of the baby gifts. My mother and my sister, (Mean aunt Wendy), her son and his new wife were coming midday just for the big feast then they would drive back to Roanoke before it got too late. They arrived to a lot of fanfare and it took a little effort but we managed to get my mother into the house. She is a little older than some types of rocks so you don’t want to push her. Everybody was sitting around the two tables in the middle of the kitchen. Cherri was cooking up a storm at the stove. I had stepped out on the front porch and when I stepped back inside I was unsure what was going on at first. Cherri was running out the back door at high speed and yelling the holiday phrase we all love to hear, ”Run for your lives!” Get out, save yourselves , women and children first! Normally at the start of a big feast like this we are used to hearing “Come and get it!” I expected to see Chevy Chase go running by with a squirrel on his back. Smoke was pouring out of the propane stove like Mt Saint Helens. There was no real flame yet but we all knew it was coming. I can’t remember the last time I saw my 167 year old mother run but she leaped up and was out the front door faster than a very old bullet. Harrison was standing by with a fire extinguisher and I had a big wad of wet towels although every few seconds we had to run out just to keep from dying. Then we would turn around and go back into the jaws of death. Mice and ladybugs were running down the stairs trying to find an exit. It was cold as blue blazes outside but it seemed preferable to the inside option which was to be roasted alive by the flaming grease from an 80 pound turkey. Harrison and I kept at it and we were able to get the pool of grease down to a controllable point. The smoke permeated ever fiber of cloth and carpet and everybody was rubbing eyes. Harrison and I looked like Amos and Andy in the kitchen. Poor Cherri was beyond mortified, who else would invite her mother in law and her entire family to dinner and then try to incinerate them within the first five minutes. Phoebe had the good sense to come in long enough to get some video of the disaster although she is laughing the whole time so it is hard to take it seriously. Within about 35 minutes we were all sitting around the table like nothing unusual had happened. The meal itself was very good although I noticed that I could no longer smell anything but turkey fire in my nose. The baby was looking around the table and you could see that he was asking himself “ what kind of a damn nuthouse family have I done gotten myself into”? God Bless us everyone! Next year we are planning on combining the fourth of July, St Patricks Day, Earth day and Martin Luther Kings birthday. Can’t wait. I am already stocking up on fire extinguishers.
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 19:18:48 +0000
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