Christmas Surprise

My baby was not expected to be born until January 11, so it was quite a surprise when my water broke during Christmas Day gift-opening at my in-laws' home. Six hours after the floodgates opened, my daughter Kelly was born, at 6:49 PM.  During my labor, Kelly's father, Perry, was being treated to a complete turkey dinner in the hospital's cafeteria.  Back in 1971, fathers rarely joined in with the birth process, and in fact, Perry was ushered out of the labor room while I was rushed to the delivery room. There were no other babies being born at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City that night.  Slow night, slow period for births, in general.

The process went so fast, that it even took the nurses by surprise. My doctor arrived just in the nick of time, interrupted during a holiday gathering, dressed up with Christmas tie, to help escort Kelly into the world. The best gift ever!

Through the years, there were the usual comments about how babies born on December 25 get short-changed in the gift and attention department.  Either that, or the gifts were piled on, two-fold.

When Kelly was 7, she wanted her birthday to be celebrated in June.  Honoring her wishes, we did so, but by Christmas, she changed her mind, so we celebrated again.

There are several December birthdays in my family. My mother, 2 brothers, sister-in-law, and I were all born in the 12th month, so have been used to having our birthdays overshadowed by the biggest holiday of the year. 
But each December 25, before I wish my daughter a "Merry Christmas", I wish her a "Happy Birthday" -  Kelly's birthday, and the best day of my life.

Wet Paint

Keeping with the spirit of the times (mid-60s-early 70s), I wanted my surroundings to be more colorful.  My sister had just died in a car accident - she was 16, I was 17 - and we had shared the bedroom. The walls were a mess, though I needed to cover more than just the walls.  I had an assortment of paints, acrylic and oils, and decided to just cover the walls with designs. 

 

Unfortunately, I ran out of linseed oil, and so used salad oil, instead (necessity being the Mother, and all that), to thin my oil paints.  Those parts of the walls that I used the salad-oiled paint on never did dry, so when my friends visited and rested back on the walls, they always came away with a design.

Being the cool hippies that we were, my buds and I were always looking for tokes.  But none of us had much money, so there were times when we couldn't purchase the stuff.  During one of these times, my friend Chaz and I wondered if catnip might do the trick, so rolled some catnip joints, and puffed away.  It didn't taste too bad, but an hour later, we both got the runs (big time!), so we decided that it wasn't worth it.  My cat Clancy loved the smoke, though. 

My friend Chaz and I had some wild adventures back in the day.  It was the mid-late 1960s.  Even when we were in grade school, we'd cut out, and hitch-hike to San Francisco.  We often hung out at 710 Ashbury, a couple of times we even sat with with Ron McKernan ("Pigpen" of the Dead).  Chaz was one of my gay friends - though that was never spoken about. Instead, I was his "date",  as I was for my other gay bestie, Bill Keach. Someone called me a "fag hag", and my last name was Hagler...so I was a 'fag-Hagler'.  Back then, I thought I could change Chaz' mind, so one day when we were up on the roof of some building in S.F. - about 12 stories up - I kissed Chaz. He was totally grossed-out, and told me "Debbie - if you do that again, I am going to jump off this roof!"  I left him alone after that, and learned a lesson there. This was in 1966. 

 Chaz and I could also be seen panhandling on Haight Street. Years later, I got a glimpse of us on a KPIX (local t.v.. news special) about the 60s, me in my peacoat and navy pants, yakking away, Chaz's wild hair flying around in the breeze.  We marched a few marches against the war, one down Stanyan Street that I remember the most, on account of its irony.

We carried our home-made "Make Love Not War" signs, a peaceful march up to the point when two guys in the front of the line had an ideological difference of opinion.  It grew ugly when they started to violently swing at each other with their "Make Love Not War" signs.  One girl behind me cried out: "Oh, bad vibes, Melissa! Let's split, this is too heavy a scene!", and I couldn't help laughing.   Political consciousness takes time to evolve. 

Dog Gone Sad

I probably should preface this by saying that if you don't want to be sad, don't read this blog, and leave it at that. 

A friend had recently asked me what my most exciting Christmas gift as a child was.

That would have been in 1958. My sister, brother and I saw a large box by the tree. We went to the box, and saw a puppy. We were THRILLED. We had never had a pet before. We took him out of the box, and just played with the puppy - who we named "Chauncy" - all day. Had to go to mass, and were impatient to get back home to play with Chauncy. 3 months later, Chauncy was sick - apparently, he had distemper. My parents had bought him at a pet store in SF. He had to be put down, of course.  We were DEVASTATED!

Our next puppy was 6 years later - half chihuahua, half cocker spaniel, one of our neighbor's dog's pups. My father named her "Lisbeth Tailears." after Elizabeth Taylor. We had Lisbeth for 3 years. We ADORED her! 

 

My sister Susan holding Lisbeth Tailears.

But we stupid kids were walking her around Pacific Manor one day, and decided to take her off-leash (there were no leash laws then). We were blabbing away, crossing the overpass - the circular one in Pacific Manor. We suddenly noticed that Lisbeth wasn't with us. We looked around, and saw that she was crossing the freeway, below us. She was afraid of heights, I guess. We looked down, saw her look up, and then saw her being hit by a car! We rushed down to where she lay. She was killed instantly. The driver stopped and apologized - he felt horrible. We reassured him it wasn't his fault, that our dog wasn't supposed to be on the road. My brother Arlo and I were just sobbing, almost hysterical. My sister Laurie picked up Lisbeth's body, and I ran to a pay phone to call our mom. Laurie told Arlo and me to stop crying - that Lisbeth was "just a dog". I remembered Laurie's comment 5 years after that - 1969 - when she was killed in a car accident. More grief. 

We had other dogs - Laurie's dog Lucy was hit by a car and killed a month after Laurie died. Lucy was LAURIE'S dog, no other, and she grieved, that dog just mourned for my sister (as we all did). 

Around 1970, my brother had a dog named Nina that had puppies. We were excited about the pups. A couple of days after the pups were born, we looked everywhere for the, and couldn't find them. Our mom told us that they had all died. We were freaked out - a litter of 6 pups all died? Years later, my mom confessed (while drunk) that she had drowned them all in the tub. I guess she was feeling overwhelmed. I can't have pets - I'm bad luck for pets - they all die on me. 

The second most exciting Christmas gift was the Beatles Rubber Soul album. 

Christmas Temping

I was a Santa's Helper for Macy's, many years ago, where one of my jobs was to take the photos of children with Santa.   One requirement was to have the child AND Santa looking at the camera, simultaneously.   Eight times out of 10, as soon as the kid was put on Santa's lap, the crying ensued, and, in more than a few cases, this was accompanied by screaming.  The Santa that I worked with was a 21-year-old blonde surfer, who filled out the Santa suit in the shoulders, but had to wear padding over his belly to complete the effect. He was continually tugging on his beard and belly, as both kept shifting.  He was cheerful, though, and that disposition helped when he got peed on a few times by terrified toddlers. 

My duties included escorting the child to Santa’s lap, then taking the photos, processing the orders, and giving the child a candy cane on their way out. The camera was located inside of a large candy cane enclosure, I guess to disguise it, but also made my job a bit clumsy. 

The photos were not the Polaroids that other malls used, but actual 35mm photos that the customers would receive later on.  Getting Santa and the child to look at the huge candy came was not always easy, but we survived it. 

  

My first husband Perry played Santa for the mall a week later, so when we got our paychecks, we found that Santas get paid a lot more than helpers, even though helpers actually did more of the work.  There’s a lesson in there, somewhere. One bonus was that I got a free photo session for my 4-year-old daughter Kelly, with the Surfer Santa.  She knew to smile, as Mom was behind the candy cane camera. 

 A postscript to this story is that "Surfer Santa" was fired, because he was found emerging from the restroom in his costume, sans beard, smoking a cigarette.  The supervisor was none too pleased, as this cast a bad light on their reputation. Not sure what the big deal was...didn't Santa smoke a pipe? In any event, he didn't seem unhappy about being let go. 

 Another Christmas, I lit and decorated Christmas trees for Macy's. Sounds fun, huh?  I had to take a class in lighting the tree, the “Sylvestri Way”, wound from the base, and around from the back of each and every branch. 

 

All of the trees were artificial, which helped, and I did a decent job of it on the first tree, following the directions of our instructor. But when I returned to work, I was given 3 flocked trees to work with, where visibility of the branches was obscured, and everything had to be done by touch.   There were several other "stringers" who got the standard tree. One had objected to doing the flocked trees, as she was "allergic to the flocking". 
  

Making a difficult situation worse was that if the string of lights went out, everything had to be unwrapped and removed, replaced by a new string.  After three days of clumsily struggling to decorate these trees, my belief in miracles was assured, because those trees actually wound up looking pretty good!  

 I, on the other hand, had looked as though I had been pooped on by a snowman, and as I walked through the mall at the end of the day, just wanted to get the flock out of there!

It's All About the Stories

We hope that our stories will live on after we are gone. We want some bit of immortality, to not be forgotten.  Each of us adds pages to our "life-book" with these stories. My own memories and experiences are interwoven with the stories told to me...added to the many stories I discovered when doing my genealogy.  

History and the tradition of storytelling among all cultures links us to the past, and the stories we hand down to our grandchildren links us to the future.  What stories will you tell?

For me, accuracy is important.  In genealogy, I verify the facts with documentation & cross-referencing. For those who do not have the advantage of obtaining the records, you might at least connect to your ancestry through DNA testing. That way, you can find matches who may have that information - family trees which lead back to you. 

My grandfather, on the other hand, told tall tales.  He embellished his stories to make them more interesting to listeners. We would enjoy his descriptions of his country boyhood in Denver City, Texas - a place that he was eager to leave. His parents must have felt that way, too, because he and his family moved to San Francisco when he was 14.  Once he met my grandma - a San Francisco native, a city girl - he never looked back...except in his stories.

Grandpa also told us that we had a great-grandmother who was a Cherokee Indian princess. We believed this, and I only recently discovered through DNA that I have not a trace of Native American in my blood.  Maybe Grandpa was told that story by his folks, and believed it. DNA has changed the stories! 

Mostly, I don't want my loved ones to be forgotten, that their lives mattered. I have lost two siblings, and I want some of their stories to continue - even if they are through my own recollections.  I would hope that others might do the same for me.