Knot My Line

About twelve years ago my grandson Dustin wrote me asking what I remember about Christmas when I was in first grade.  This is my response to him.   

Dear Dustin:

Thank you for the nice letter.

So you want to know what Christmas was like when I was in first grade?   Well that’s a lot of remembering to do.  I think that I was about seven years old when I was in first grade.  Holy cow Dustin, that is over fifty years ago. I sure hope you don’t expect me to remember EVERYTHING!

When I was In first grade my family lived in Chicago.  We lived on the North side of the city on Oakdale Street near Wolcott.  I went to the Jahn School.  I don’t think it is there any more.  I remember that the school yard was fenced in with huge concrete posts that held long metal poles.  One day just before Christmas I ran into one of the concrete posts and cut my head real bad.  The school nurse put a band-aid on the cut and sent me home.  When I got home the band-aid was gone and the cut was bleeding.  When my mother came to the door to let me in and saw this she almost fainted because I looked so bad. I still have the scar.

My mom always liked to put up the Christmas tree soon after Thanksgiving and sometimes didn’t take it down until February.  We were real poor and I would take my red wagon and go up on the train tracks and pick coal.  The trains all used coal for fuel, so there was always pieces and chunks of coal that would fall off the train.  I remember that sometimes the firemen on the trains would scoop big shovels-full of coal and give them to me.

My favorite poem from first grade went like this:

A snowman stood outside of the door
and thought he’d like to come in and live upon the floor
So the North Wind blew him through the door
Now there’s nothing but a puddle on the floor

I remember that I got a train set for Christmas.  My dad, my brother and I set it up in front of the Christmas tree and I would sit there and run it around in circles for hours.  I really liked that train set a lot.  I would use pieces of wood and cardboard to build bridges and buildings and use my toy soldiers to pretend that the train was being attacked and they had to save it from the train robbers. I had a lot of fun.

Well Dustin, that’s all I can remember.  I hope this helps you.  I love you and hope we can go fishing with each other this summer.