The Farm She Was by Ann Mohin

Author:Ann Mohin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bridgeworks
Published: 1998-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

The trouble is that this Jerome Anderson never writes his return address on the envelope. I am not sure exactly how I am related to him.

I GET SOME CHRISTMAS CARDS, TOO, though I don’t send them out anymore. The Turtle Brand Oil Company sends one every year, a printed card with no sign of a human touch. I put it on the mantel, but I don’t send one back.

All the years with Mother and Father, and then all the years until I got a television, I never felt lonely during the Christmas holidays. But after the events of that black November in 1963, I went out and bought an RCA. I didn’t want to become as stubborn and old-fashioned as my mother, who predicted that television would unravel the world. I must have been the only American alive who didn’t see Lee Harvey Oswald get his comeuppance, but I didn’t miss the very first moonwalk. I refuse to close my eyes to history.

There is something eerie about those TV images, though. They’re always laughing and dancing and having a much better time than anyone deserves. I wonder if my own memories have been transformed by them. Was that my father trudging a path through the snow on Christmas Eve to cut the biggest spruce we could find? Or am I remembering a Christmas special?

He would set it up in the corner of the parlor and Mother and I would wrap it with strings of popcorn for decoration. We cut strips of colored paper and made a long chain of rings to drape around the tree. The fresh scent of pine drifted throughout the house and sometimes an abandoned bird’s nest would be hidden in its branches.

Fire blazing, Father would slip in the back door and surprise us with baskets of oranges and candy. Mother got a fresh new apron every year and a handkerchief. I got handmade wooden toys or dolls until I was old enough to ask for books. Christmas was the one day of the year that we dressed up, put red ribbons on Gypsy and Pat, hitched them to the cutter and went to church together.

When I lived alone, I continued to cut my own tree, which each Christmas became smaller and easier to handle. But a few years ago, I bought a lovely little permanent tree at the Grange bake sale and bazaar on Election Day. Everyone comes to vote, and most of the baked goods are sold by noon. I was the first to spot the green ceramic tree. It was perched on the sale table, a shiny sample of someone’s hobby.

Well, I plunked down $3.50 in Kennedy half dollars, which happened to be weighing down my pocket because I’d just sold four dozen eggs to Ralph Hart. He liked to pay in silver. I was lucky to get the tree because that year a record 621 people turned out to vote. I don’t remember what the fuss was all about, but the town was steamed that election year.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.