Fifty-nine degrees on the first day of winter. Very pleasant compared to what it could be…and will be in the future. The Winter Solstice marks the shortest night in the year. Contrary to what almost everyone says regarding being lovers of long days and short nights…I must disagree! I worked evenings and nights for much […]

The Longest Night — The Jazz Man

December 20 was staring back at Boris as he gazed at the calendar. He had awakened believing that it was Christmas Day. When his mom informed him that it was almost time for church and that he had overslept…he scurried to get his shower and prepare for Zoom Church! You see, dear reader, Boris had been attending Zoom Church since last march of 2020…when the pandemic reared its ugly head in the United States. Boris and his best friend Rocky had been talking of little else for the entire month of December. He had made a study of the brightly wrapped gifts that were under their Christmas Tree. There were large ones and small ones and some that rattled like something was broken on the inside of them. Boris tried not to shake these as vigorously as the others! Rocky reported that he believed that two of the gifts that he was going to receive were of Jake and Elwood…or better known as the Blues Brothers. Rocky had found the rare action figures at Electric Larry’s in Carbondale. Now Electric Larrys was a Emporium for the nerd and the geek among us…and of course for Boris and Rocky… Boris was desiring a set of Star Trek Bobbleheads consisting of all of the Captains of the Starship Enterprise…through out television history…beginning with Captain Kirk! Rocky had his heart set on an action figure of Quentin Tarantino’s character of Mr. Brown in the movie ‘Reservoir Dogs.’

Natasha met the boys at E.L..’s. She was searching for Vintage Garments…and Larry had an abundance! She also enjoyed Antique Comics and had quite a collection of Superman editions. When they saw Natasha they noticed that she had on her knee boots and Mod Cap… Boris’s mom often referred to Natasha as a ‘Pip’ and Boris always wondered what that title meant. Natasha told Boris and Rocky that she had seen Pinkus yesterday and that he had told her that his family, of which was him and his mom, would not be exchanging gifts this year. He went on to say that his mom had lost her waitress position at S & B’s Burgers when they had closed due to the pandemic. Pinkus mom had been able to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table…and she usually spent more than she had for Pinkus on Christmas. She had been looking for work but the hospitality industry had ground to a halt due to the forced closures coming from fear of Covid spread… Pinkus and his mom were living at the Good Samaritan Homeless Shelter…and at least they were not cold or hungry like they had been in November.

Boris proclaimed that he had an idea! He and Rocky and Natasha rushed to their homes and each retrieved 3 Christmas gifts that were addressed to them from under their Christmas Trees. Then he said…let us readdress them to Pinkus and his Mom and ask them to join us for Christmas? Boris then thought that a real Christmas gift would be for he and his mom and dad to invite them to stay with them until they could get on their feet…after all they had a 12 room house and several of the rooms they seldom entered… Natasha and Rocky went to Good Samaritan House and invited Pinkus and his mom, Mary, to come to Boris house as they were going to be their guests until life improved. Mary wept tears of joy when she heard the words of love and concern…and she had not even seen the gifts…yet…

Boris dad, who was called Bullwinkle, was a small man with a big heart. When Bullwinkle heard about the plan that had been devised by Boris and Rocky and Natasha…he not only said that Mary and Pinkus were welcome…but that he would help Mary get a job with Southern Illinois University…as he still knew some people there… Pinkus danced and sang a song of joy, ‘No one will call me poor little Pinkus…anymore!’

Boris and Rocky and Natasha were all smiles Christmas morning. The look of happiness on Pinkus and Mary’s face were priceless… And Boris still received his Russian Nesting Doll of Boris Yeltsin and all of the other leaders of Russian…increasingly small and inside of Yeltsin…and Boris said…’What a Country!’ And it was a gift from Electric Larry’s Emporium…

Porter and Chet were excited about the infinite possibilities that awaited them as Christmas was only 1 week away. They had patiently awaited the magical day all year long. As they spoke with Parker, at lunch, they discovered that Santa had confided in her that he was going to personally visit each of their homes on Christmas Eve…and not let the elves slide down their chimneys…as he sometimes did… Now the personal visit of St. Nick was vitally important in 2020 as all of the Christmas decorations had vanished and the 15 foot tall 3 dimensional Santa that stood proudly in front of the bank…and the beautiful Christmas wreaths that were strung along the town square from one side of the street to the other…had vanished. Why, even when you met your neighbor on the street and greeted them with a hearty and full of holiday Christmas cheer proclamation of..Merry Christmas…they responded with ‘Bah Humbug’…and so it goes. Parker had drawn a majestic Santa Claus and colored it with red and green and it looked quite festive! She placed her art on the bulletin board in the 3rd grade classroom…and today it was nowhere to be found! Chet had attempted to sing ‘Good King Wenceslas’ for the annual Christmas Pagent…and someone turned off his microphone! Porter’s mom, Neva, baked Christmas Coffee Cake for his class Christmas Party…but when he began to pass the the sweet confection out…he pulled out turnips from the Holiday Bag… Christmas was in trouble…

Eldorado was hurting from the 2020 pandemic. Many of the citizens of the small rural community that boasted of having a population of 5,000 friendly people and one old sore head…had become ill with the virus…and some had passed away… Some churches had closed for the safety of their parishioners and other had stayed, stubbornly, open…and beseeched their congregation to stay strong and trust in God…and to not give up their freedom to the will of the Governor! Chet noted that he had tried to find the usual Christmas movies on television and when he could find none he had looked for his Christmas LP’s of Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole…and Burl Ives…and they had disappeared also… As former President Jimmy Carter had told the nation…many years ago…there was a malaise covering the country. And then came Santa…

Santa arrived in Eldorado on December the 18th…a week before Christmas! Porter found him fast asleep in the Lazy Boy recliner in their living room. When Porter shook the sleepy old elf…awake…he rubbed him eyes and asked, ‘Porter…are you ready to help me save Christmas?’ Porter responded that not only was he ready but so where Parker and Chet. Santa said, ‘We begin in the morning!’

Saturday brought a cold and windy morning…with holiday shoppers looking for Christmas gifts for their family and friends…but they had forgotten the importance of the event or the joy of the Season. Santa stood where the 15 foot 3 dimensional Santa had stood in front of the bank and began to utter his famous, ‘HO Ho Ho…Merry Christmas!’ Cars stopped in the middle of the road…as the drivers exited and made their way towards the rotund man in the red suit…with a little pipe in his mouth. Suddenly there was Mrs. Claus…better known as CC…along with Elvira the Elf. Pierre Noel told the continually gathering crowd that Christmas had not been canceled and that 2021 was going to be a much better year! CC proclaimed that Santa had gifts for everyone and a special blankett of Christmas Peace and Love and Good Cheer! Elvira said for everyone to wear their masks and to be especially kind to each other… Similar to an ocean wave…everyone began to smile and greet each other with a ‘Happy Christmas’ or a gift for the person that was standing next to them…tears of joy were in everyone’s eyes! Immediately the 15 foot Santa statue re-appeared behind Santa! Parker said, ‘Look…the Christmas Wreaths have come back!’ Porter reached down in his sack of turnips and brought out a delicious piece of Christmas Coffee Cake for Parker and Chet and for everyone around them!

On the Saturday before Christmas the people of Eldorado began to believe again!

Christmas has always fascinated me with its transformative power. Life takes on a misty prism of red and green and somewhat of a halt in daily strife and turmoil. I was at Walmart the other day and the friendly cashier wished me Merry Christmas. I wished her the same and I thought what a more peaceful world we would live in if we each took the time to wish each others the best..each time that we met. Statistics have shown that there is more food given to the hungry at this time of year and more shelter provided for the homeless during the holiday season. It hurts our conscience and our spirit of recognizing the birth of Jesus…to think that we turned away from those who are food insecure and those who are cold and who are sleeping rough… There is a feel good feeling to considering the poor among us at this time of universal gift giving. Why…even Congress may finally send us some small relief from our poverty and hunger and lack of coat or cloak or blanket as a buffer from the cold… and the devastation of the Coronavirus!

How does it feel when you are the person who is walking when seemingly all others are riding? What thoughts go through a persons head and what do they see when they look into the mirror and witness their emaciated reflection staring hollowed eyed…back at them? As you shiver outside of a local five star restaraunt…and you sit on the cold and hard sidewalk waiting for anyone to give you a dollar for a McDonalds hamburger? It is so easy to talk a good game…but to walk away when the need is directly in front of your eyes…

Scrooge’s transformation is legendary! Charles Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’ inspires us to rise from the darkness that is part of us…and to choose to follow the light of the angels… What if the poorly clad and cold and hungry among us…are angels… Perhaps the inconvenient and embarrassing and shunned in our midst…are Christ…looking for a place to be born?

Permission is granted to be more loving and caring and considerate of our fellow human travelers during Christmas time. It is an integral component of the ethos of the season. The warm and fuzzy emotions that captivate our heart become inclusive to those members of society that we do not often think of. We seek how to close our year and make amends for our thoughtlessness and lack of time for…the needy that are under our nose…365 days a year…

When I consider the blessings that I have received I know that I am neither worthy, by my own merit, nor one of those who did it on my own…or as the famous crooner, Frank Sinatra sand, ‘I did it my way!’ MJ and I worked hard…but a Guardian Angel was always at our sides! I vividly recall our first Christmas as a married couple! Christmas 1978 was a golden time for us! We had married in March of 78′ and had proceeded to experience extremely difficult times, financially, until October of that year. That is when I was hired as a Building Service Worker I @ Physical Plant Building Services on October 10th. On October 25th we purchased our first new automobile. A two door LTD. It seemed like a Lincoln Continental to me… As we drove to my mom and step-dad’s house in Eldorado, Illinois on Christmas Eve…I felt like that we were finally in the game of life! We could support ourselves and purchase enough groceries to feed ourselves and soon to buy our first home. We had a beautiful landscape painting in our, spacious, backseat, of our massive LTD…for mom. I had worked hard since the time that I had graduated from Eldorado High School…but I had never made any significant money…I felt like a hard working bum! But, I did not feel like a bum on Christmas Eve of 1978…I had a new job that turned into my career and I had money for modest Christmas gifts…and a glow of the magic of Christmas!

I stood in silence as the Ghost of Christmas present sang to us at the Fox Theatre! He sang of the joys of Christmas and of his visit with Mr. Scrooge and his performance lifted my spirits to what I call…a Christmas Experience… I saw a little boy in Chicago…and a young man with a new wife and 2 little boys named Aaron and Jonathon…and a 63 year old man…who is still mesmerized by the magic of Christmas…

There is a chance of snow tonight. That has become somewhat of a big deal in Little Egypt. I remember as a child in Eldorado, Illinois and walking to school through 6 foot snow drifts… Oh…perhaps they were not always 6 foot drifts but we did have more snow in our neck of the woods than we do now. I recall several days of single digit temperatures and some days that were below 0! We had a coal furnace in more than one of the homes that I lived in during my youth. The Coal Man would deliver our coal and we preferred anthracite coal over bituminous coal…because it burned cleaner and hotter. When we moved to the country it was my job to retrieve the coal each evening when I arrived home from school. Now this was at least an hour later than the conclusion of school due to my riding the school bus…and during this time of year it could be rather dark. The coal room that was adjacent to the garage…was dark. I often took a flashlight to determine the burnable coal from the clinkers…and on the rare occasion the evidence of the cats that made the darkened and private facility their toilet… In this house, that my mom and step-father lived in until his death, we had a coal stove just off to the kitchen. In order to facilitate the heating of our 6 room home…we had to stoke the coal fire to a red hot glow! In those early days of my christian experience I had a practice of reading my Bible every evening at the kitchen table. The pages of my Bible would curl up at the corners due to the extreme heat.

My Christmas joy was heightened this afternoon when I walked the Campus Woods path and discovered that there are more ornaments now than there were before Scrooge absconded with the first batch! It is a Christmas Miracle! Each day of Advent…is Christmas to me! When I walk the woods path and see the Christmas ornaments placed lovingly on the trees…I feel the hope for a better tomorrow! The holiday season always reminds me that there is never enough time… My father-in-law, Berl Hickam, told me on a regular basis, ‘Jay…you will never have enough time to do everything that you want to do.’ Berl was right! During Christmastide I think about where I have been…and where I want to go. My life is a tapestry that I reflect on. I truly believe that each of us is a mixture of darkness and light…the challenge is to journey towards the light…

I was reading a review of ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ earlier. The reviewer noted that the famous animation took a complex look at the Christmas Season. There was a melancholy theme to the program with Charlie Brown feeling depressed by the commerciality of the Christmas Season. Sent to purchase an aluminum Christmas Tree…he finds a forlorn small fir tree that the group decorates into a lovely Christmas Tree by adorning it with beautiful ornaments. I think I see the little Charlie Brown Christmas fir tree each time that I walk through Campus Woods and observe the wonderful Christmas ornaments that my fellow campus woods walkers have placed on the, sometimes, small and unnoticed little trees… There is a bit of a ‘Blue Christmas’ for each of us that have lived for sometime. A hidden melancholy colors our emotions and thoughts during this joyous time. We remember happy Christmas memories…and we recall sad events that have happened during this special time of year. Many of our friends and neighbors have lost loved ones to Covid-19…many of us are out of work…many of us are food insecure. When we see Christmas we see the little sad and lowly fir tree with the bent branches and falling needles. Perhaps with God’s help and the love of others….we can visualize the transformed Christmas Tree…with the hopeful ornaments of faith and trust and peace…

Darkness has clouded our horizon for much of 2020. I recall, as if it were yesterday, our church board meeting in the beginning of this year and voting to close our church to public meetings…perhaps until Easter. We had a May holiday planned to visit Maine…that in late February I thought we might be able […]

Good News! — The Jazz Man

Cold December air has invaded Carbondale, Illinois. It is less than two weeks until Christmas. The Christmas ornaments have returned, in part, to Campus Woods…and vaccinations for Covid-19 are on their way across the United States! I watched hard working and diligent staff package the Pfizer vaccine vials in dry ice with a temperature gauge to ensure that the vaccine is kept at its required extremely cold temperatures…and then the loading of the pallets on to the trucks…and the the starting of the semis massive engines and their departure from the loading dock… People cheered and clapped and tears came to their eyes as the first glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel of our 2020 pandemic…was happening before our eyes!

Life is not a battle of who has the better argument…or the most loud vocalization of their particular point of view. All success is incremental and it requires the hard painstaking work of every one of us to succeed! The health of our nation and our world is not commensurate upon celebrities and charismatic icons…it is about the detailed minutiae of work and labor and dedication to a larger principe than the individual.

Laughing Santa was my buddy in Chicago. I remember his plastic jovial face and his little red suit and his cap, that was affixed to his head, and the crank that protruded out of his back…that when I turned it the most uproarious laughter issued forth from my pal! As a child between 1 and 5 years old…he was Christmas to me! He only came out during the holiday season…and he always flashed me a wise and knowing look that said that he understood all of my childhood wants and needs and that he was present just for me! My mom made a big deal out of Laughing Santa. He was made by the Gund company and she had purchased him for me on Michigan Avenue. I swear that for his day and time…he was the epitome of Christmas toy technology! My neighbor and friend, Steve, had several marionettes. Steve and his sister, Susie, often brought the marionettes over to my house and conducted puppet shows for mom and me. Their expertise in the maneuvering of the puppets transported me to another world! As I sat and watched the antics of Punch and Judy and their cohorts I released that the world was as wide open and exciting as I was willing to expose myself too! During the holiday marionettes shows…Laughing Santa would join me in my emersion into the universe of puppetry. I loved marionettes so much that I requested one for Christmas…and received it!

Marionettes are a fact of life for each of us…if we are not careful… There are always people who want to pull our strings and have us become a part of their puppet show. The question is as to whether we will submit to the will of another who does not have our best interest at heart…or will we choose to think for ourselves and and be the operator of the strings and the master of our own puppet show?

Santa’s laughter planted in me a happy feeling of peace and love for Christmastide. Christmas is a reset button for our lives! It is a time of pause…and consideration…and recognition that we do not have to continue in a sad and forlorn state of existence. We can change…for the better! We can transform to a second father for ‘Tiny Tim’ and make the season of goodwill last all year long!

There was a massive Christmas Tree in Chicago…with mom and dad and I sitting under it. There was marionettes for Christmas and holiday music playing on the stereo, that covered one wall of our living room, and a special candy that I can not totally remember…but the sweet smell of it…says Christmas to me…60 years later…and…Santa laughed!

It was warm yesterday…but the temperature is more seasonal today. A few days ago I wrote of the disappearance of the Christmas ornaments along the walking path in Campus Woods. There were as of a little while ago today…several new ornaments! This is direct evidence that the Grinch can not steal Christmas! I have heard most of my life that we become old too soon and wise too late… Since I retired from Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale. Life is not meant to be taken fast…it is meant to be savored…slowly. Between the cacophony of television and on line media…our senses become somewhat numb to the quiet and peace of nature and friendship and serious and lengthy intricate thought… I fear that our thoughts and beliefs and emotions are molded by news and political and religious commentary. If left alone I wonder if we would witness a more congenial and collegial relationship among peoples?

Here we are in the midst of Advent. The 3rd Sunday of Advent is tomorrow. We patiently wait for the birth of Jesus…for whom there was no room in the Inn…and was compelled to be born in a manger among the donkeys and sheep and the wise men of the east…and Mary and Joseph. Jesus was born into a world of religious elitism and demagogy. He entered a world where the temple had been overrun with money changers and capitalist who worshiped the shekel more than the promises of God… And, so, today we fine ourself in a society that applaudes and honors and worships financial gain…and looks down upon the needy and the hungry and the homeless…as obviously having some type of character deficit…or out of the favor of a God who bequeaths and bestows financial riches on his chosen and who turns a blind eye on the suffering humanity that are at our doorstep and who sleep rough outside our favorite 5 star restaurants…

Humans have the propensity to praise themselves if they fall in feces and come out smelling like a rose! So often we become enamored and endeared to our temporary condition. We become convinced that if somehow we got a break in life or a ‘leg-up’ or were in the right place at the right time…that we are anointed with some type of brilliance…or that we no longer breath the same air as the great unwashed…we are breathing a rarified air that is meant for God’s special children… The Hope of Christmas illustrates to us the mean and poor circumstances that the Christ child entered into the world of humans. A carpenter’s son and his mother great with child out of wedlock…and the pungent smell of the stable and the bleating of the goats and the braying of the sheep…and the brilliance of the star that the wise men followed…

Perhaps it is the lighting of the Advent Candle. Perhaps it is the joy of a Christmas Carol. Perhaps it is a Christmas prayer that the New Year will bring good health and peace…and love for all mankind…

The cries of the Con men and women of the world are shattering our ears! I worked around more than one university leader who found themselves in distress and endangered as to their continued viability and employment. I listened to their assessment that the university and my job and many others were not only in danger but soon to be lost…when in reality their narcissism had convinced them that whatever happened to them…as they were all powerful and all important…would happen to the poor line workers and diligent laborers who supported their success…unappreciated! The Christ child is coming…the hope of our world is about to appear…and he is not coming because of the rich and powerful and mighty…he is coming to minister and bring hope to the poor of the land…

Christmas Eve had finally arrived! Parker woke up to her dreams of the numerous colorfully wrapped gifts that were under her Christmas tree. It was a nine foot live fir tree and she and her father and brother and sister had hiked into the woods to cut it down and drag it to their staton […]

The Abduction of Christmas! — The Jazz Man

As I was waiting on Jonathon to join me, on his lunch hour, for a festive campus woods stroll..I noticed a couple of folks furtively doing something with the random Christmas ornaments that had been hung on the trees along the path. I have been walking the path for 42 years and for many of those years persons, unknown, have been decorating the trees along the paved walking route through the woods. Not long into December you will begin to see a Christmas ornament here and there and the lovingly decorated foliage adds tremendously to the holiday spirit of the woods travelers. Soon after Christmas the ornaments begin to disappear. There is one pine tree that is usually fully adorned with Christmas Tree decorations. Last year it was festooned with berries and popcorn. As Jonathon and I passed the two diligent workers the young lady glared at me with the focused gaze of one on a ‘Mission from God!’ We quickly discovered that their busy hands had been engaged in stripping all of the Christmas decorations. Out of all of the years that I have enjoyed the holiday splendor of the woods, I have never witnessed the abduction of all of the holiday regalia over two weeks prior to Christmas!

Now let me explain that I am. not a Forestry major…but I do drive a Subaru Forester… I am understanding enough to realize that perhaps there was a good reason for the ‘Grinch Who Stole Christmas!’ Perhaps there was a fear for the wildlife of the special Campus area? I can attest that I have been a regular observer and photographer of the annual Christmas Woods Christmas Decorations… and I have never witnessed either broken ornaments or evidence that the squirrels or deer were trying to consume the bright objects. I have witnessed for over 60 years…Christmas lights and ornaments adoring many live trees across my region and in many cities that I have visited. Speaking for myself…the annual random Christmas decorations at our Campus Woods have represented a spirit of hope and a better future for our planet. Especially in the year of our 2020 pandemic….the experiencing of the love and concern of the good people who took time to lift the spirits of their fellow human family…was a blessing to me…

On to more positive thoughts! Once again I had the distinct honor of delivering our church board’s gifts to our church staff. As a Personnel Elder I can think of no other duty, accept for our achieving a Covenant Pastorate for our Pastor, Kerry Bean in our First Presbyterian Church of Carbondale, that I enjoy more than the delivering of a Christmas gift to our precious church staff! Without our church staff…we would be lost…and their contribution to the uplifting of our congregation and the enrichment of our christian experience…is immeasurable!

I have been reflecting on the wonderful civil service staff at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale. These dedicated people keep our University running and if it had not been for their dedication…we would have been closed…long ago! All to often they work and suffer in silence! Humble and dedicated professionals their hearts and lives are committed to the success of SIUC! Many of them, do to their low pay, qualify for food stamps. They not only have not received a pay raise in several years…they have not received a cost of living raise! They complain little and continue to take on more and more job duties…believing that University leaders will see their extreme toil and unparalleled dedication to the vision and the mission and the dream of former University President Dr. Delyte Morris…that they will be recognized for their total immersion into the educational experience of our University’s most precious citizens…our students…

It is 70 degrees today in Little Egypt. I am on the writing porch and the door to the house is open! Christmas Eve is 2 weeks from today! Santa’s elves are busily working… Hope and light are invading our hearts! We are going to emerge from our 2020 pandemic…and we will pay closer attention to what matters and the heart cords of human love and kindness…that make our lives have meaning…