White Gifts

It might not be too surprising to learn that I'm not a very religious person. It's great if you are, more power to you. But as a friend of  mine once quoted to me, "Organized religion is like organized crime and I try to stay away from both". Take that as you will, but I was  raised in a religious tradition. The tradition of the Methodists, which from what I remember was less about the condemnation and more about  the singing and the doughnuts in the basement afterwards. I was even confirmed as a Methodist, but that is a story and a revelation for  another time. My family has many stories around our misadventures with church, and this is but one of them. Perhaps the most famous of them.

It was Christmas, one of my all time favorite times of year. For the small price of being mostly good, one gets phat lootz. From a magic man with flying reindeer. Which is just about the greatest thing to ever happen to a kid and an adult. I love the concept of Santa, and I pretty much love just about everything that has to do with Christmas. Especially the music, of which I have a lot. One of the best things about  Christmas is watching people stress out about how perfect everything has to be. Christmas perfection is a completely un-achievable goal, as something will always go wrong. I've long since accepted this aspect of the Christmas season and have made peace with it. And I think I have the church to thank for that, in just a small way.

Christmas is the season for giving, as they say. and one should always give to the poor and needy. This was a mantra that was sold to us over the many years of church going and advertisements, one that is rung by annoying bell ringers throughout the land and in front of malls. Christmas is a time to remember that not everyone is as fortunate as you - you in this case was myself and my family living in the suburb of Wayzata - and that we as a community should do what we can for the poor children who would not get anything for Christmas.

One thing that I always found strange about our church was how the various parishioners were divided up during the whole event. I remember as a kid we would start church up in the main room with everyone else and our families. Then after a few songs and the minister had spoken to the kids in a slightly condescending fashion, we were sent off to Sunday school. I hated Sunday school. It was boring and I was often with kids who weren't my friends and with whom I didn't want to form a friendship with anyway. I remember on more than one occasion heading off to the bathroom after being excused and just wandering the halls and spying on the other classes, especially the older classes to see if anything would get better or more lively. It never looked like it would, nor did it ever. Honestly, this is probably as close to hell as I would get. Aimlessly wandering plan halls covered in religious themes, looking for anything interesting happening - and interesting things will never happen.

It was in these Sunday school sessions around Christmas time that the lovely teachers spoke to us all about Jesus and his birth and the gifts and such. I never understood why Santa wasn't in these stories, as it seemed to be a glaring oversight on everyone's part. We all listened to what the teachers had to say, and then they presented us with the idea. We were to think of all the poor children who wouldn't have much on Christmas morning from their families and we should take care of them. Now, this also struck me as odd. Every story and show about Santa Claus clearly stated that he brought gifts for ALL children - even if they were crappy wood carved arks - so why did they need my help? This seems like stepping all over Santa's toes. But we were told that even with Santa, who could only do so much, these children might not get any toys because Santa liked to make sure their basic needs were met by bringing them socks.

Reluctantly, I bought the line as being good and no disruptive as a major part of the Santa gift getting rules. We were then told as a class, as was every kid in Sunday school, that next Sunday we were to bring in a "White Gift". Each child would find a toy for a poor and needy child and bring it into church so that it could be passed along to them before Christmas. They were called White Gifts because we would lovingly wrap each gift in pure white tissue paper, and then we would place that beautiful White Gift under the tree. It would look like glorious piles of snow under the tree, piles of warm and caring snow. "Be sure to tell your parents!" we were told. We all nodded in agreement. And 10 minutes after being told, I promptly forgot. TO MY CREDIT, my brother forgot as well.

Morning were usually chaotic in our house, as they are in many people's houses who have kids. And let it be known that I like to sleep. I like sleep a lot, and waking up in the morning was just about the worst thing to happen in my day. Waking up for church only compounded my hatred and evil mood. Despite having a week to tell our parents of the wonderful idea of White Gifts, as I was sure every other family had done, we didn't tell them. In fact, it wasn't until we got into the car and were driving the 15 minutes to Church, already pressed for time as we were often running behind schedule, that we remembered White Gifts at all. "Mom! We were supposed to get White Gifts!"

After quickly explaining the whole idea, my parents said the most natural thing of all, "Why are you just telling us now?"

"We forgot!" we cried, trying to sound somewhat pitiful.

After a quick argument over being late to church or arriving without any White Gifts for the poor and needy children, a decision was made to stop at the local drugstore and make our White Gifts purchases. The Rexal Drug store was a wonderland to me. They had rows of candy, a toy section, magazines and comic books. Upon entering the store, my father quickly found the tissue paper and scotch tape, while my brother and I started to head toward the toy section, which was much farther into the store. "There's no time," my mother hissed at us, "Get something from up here. We have to go!"

The selection of options near the front of the store was completely limited to everything you would never want to get for a gift. All the impulse items that might cause a person to say, "Oh.. I need that" and not "Oh, I want that". There is a big difference between want and need, and I've always felt Christmas is a want holiday; not a need holiday. While my brother and I pondered over the least offensive options, time ticked away and so did my mother's patience. In the end, we chose two sets of unbreakable combs as our White Gift. Oh I could only imagine the joy that recipients of our choice would get upon opening their White Gifts. Did you get a toy? No.. better. Unbreakable combs. It would be a true a Christmas miracle, these gifts of combs.

With everything purchased, we flew back to the car in an desperate attempt to make it to Church on time. Combs, tissue paper, scotch tape and a notorious temper accompanied my mother to the front seat as she set about trying to wrap these crap combs into the perfect White Gift for under the church tree. Doing any sort of detail work in a moving vehicle is a crap shoot at best, and already at her end, these White Gifts were proving to be a step to far for my mom. I could hear my mother's patience shredding as quickly as the flimsy tissue paper shred as the slightest touch of the hard cardboard of the comb packaging. After a few attempts, and many exclamations of "Shit!", my brother and I were surprised by two sets of unbreakable combs that had been hurled at us from the front, followed by fluttering pages of white tissue paper and a role of tape. "Wrap your own god damned White Gifts!" was our only comment and command. Indignation welled up in my brother and I, as we wrapped these crappy combs with all the angst two children who had brought this upon themselves could muster. Driving in silence, with only the rip of scotch tape to break it, we arrived at church with two oval bundles of White Mess that would need to pass as a perfect White Gift.

Much like all the other Sundays, the children joined the rest of the congregation in the main room, before being banished off to the depths of Sunday school. Each of us holding our White Gifts, we children lined up in a procession, to place our wonderful gift for the poor and needy under the tree. As we moved toward the tree at the front of the hall, the minister spoke of all the love and kindness that happens in this glorious season of Christmas and how these white gifts, so carefully wrapped with love, were true symbols of the spirit of Christmas. As I held the white ball of tissue with an unbreakable comb core, I just turned to look at my parents and glared.

The Deadliest Game

I don't have children. I once had the thought about having children but I quickly realized that it was more from the expectation that I was to have children and not that I really wanted them. I've been told by a few people that I would be a really great dad, and that might be true. But I think part of being a parent is wanting to care for that child. I didn't want that. Having children went to the wayside like the other expectations about my future life that didn't fit. I think people who want to be parents are amazing people, because I swear that 50% of their time is making sure that the child doesn't kill itself by doing something stupid.

This is a time when I did something very stupid.

To understand how this all came about, you need to know more about my family, on my mother's side. My mom was the middle child of five. She has two sisters and two brothers. The oldest is Janice, then Jim, Then Joyce, my mom, and because they ran out of J names my grandparents had Gary and Gayle. From there, they all had their own kids and we spent a lot of time together as one big family. I saw my cousins a great deal, and we would often spend time at each other's houses even thought some of us lived across state lines. I loved being with my cousins, and this is something that is still part of our lives to this day. We are also a crazy bunch that doesn't always make good choices.

On this occasion, we were traveling with my Aunt Janice and her five kids, Paul, Beth, Barb, Becky and Chris. The we part was my mom, my brother and myself. Now, I don't remember why we did this, but we were all traveling to Michigan - Midland to be exact - where my Aunt lived. Normally, we would drive around the big lake that is between Wisconsin and Michigan, commonly referred to as Lake Michigan, often heading south around the bend and up to Midland. For this trip, it is was decided that we would take the ferry across the lake instead.

I love being on boats and the water. I grew up on lakes, water and boats. I can't think of a time in my childhood where we weren't at a lake cabin or on a boat in the summer, it was that much a part of our lives. I had my boating driving license before I had my car driving license, which is to be expected because I think you can drive a boat when you are 14.

It was exciting to be on this ferry with all the cars, crossing one of the great lakes. But the weather wasn't that great and the ferry was rocking quite a bit. But that didn't really bother us at all, since we were used to being on choppy waters. And there was a storm, so it was raining outside and we were informed that instead of being able to go up top on the decks of the ferry, everyone was going to stay inside and out of the water and bad weather. My mother and my aunt started talking and within minutes were deep in conversation, completely oblivious to the rest of the world. So, naturally, we kids decided to wander the ship and have fun.

After maybe half an hour, we ran out of things to do inside the ship. There were cars to look at, and a few people to bother, but really it wasn't all that interesting being below decks on a ferry. I'm not sure who had the original idea that we should just go up on deck anyway, but one of us did. Perhaps I'm not remembering to protect the innocent, but we all agreed that being down below was boring and on the upper deck of the ferry had to be more interesting than this. So, we went.

The upper deck was had the main building and stairwell in the center of the deck, and then a wide expanse of wood on all sides that led to the outer railing of the ferry and beyond that railing was the cold waters of Lake Michigan. The weather had been terrible, but the rain had lessen enough that we could see while up there. But a few reminders of the bad weather remained in the form of really strong winds and a completely wet and slick deck.

Once we were all up and out of the stairwell leading to the deck, we shut the door and clung to the railing of the inner building. The wind was strong and was violently pushing against us. It was very difficult to keep your footing at all on the slick, watery wood and that's when the idea of the deadly game started. And of course, we thought what we were about to do was the most fun idea we as a group had thought up yet.

I want to say Paul went first, but this is what the game was to give you an idea of how stupid we were being. We would use the inner hand rail to pull ourselves to the front of the inner building of the ferry. Once at the top, you would step away from the building, let go of the railing and hold out your arms. From there, the wind would do it's job which was to blow you and your slick feet backwards across the deck, where at the last minute, you would grab the inner railing and save yourself from flying over the edge of the outer railing and out into the waters of the lake. I'll let you read that again to take in the scope of JUST HOW STUPID THIS WAS.

I won't deny that it was fun. The sensation of being somewhat powerless in the face of nature and you are blown backwards was thrilling. There was rightly a strong sense of danger in this action, and we all took our turns on this made up death ride. It became clear as we 'played' our game that the older kids had a much easier time with the wind that Chris and I. We were much smaller, maybe 9 or 10 at the time, and the wind tossed us like dried leaves. We flew down that deck, sliding faster than the rest and we lacked a lot of the strength to grab that wet slick railing at the end. But that didn't stop us from doing this completely insane action over and over again.

Pull yourself to the front of the building - release! Fly! Grab! Repeat! It was great fun. On my forth ride, I noticed that I was having a much harder time grabbing the railing. It was cold on that lake and in the wind and my body was getting very tired. But I still grabbed hold. Paul went, next, flew and grabbed the rail and was safe. Chris was next to go and when he let go, the wind kicked in hard and he darted backward at such a speed he didn't have time to react. Before he knew it, he was past the last chance to catch that back rail and was sliding farther away from us toward the outer edge of the ferry and who knows what. In my mind, I remember time seeming to slow down as most of us watched helplessly as Chris slid away from safety and toward the unknown. He was too far away, but suddenly, there was a long arm that grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the rail. Paul had let go with one hand and managed to snag him and pull him in.

With that scare, we knew on a deep level that this game was not only supremely stupid, but that it was now over. We hurried back to the stairwell and ducked back inside, out of the wind and back into safety. I can't say that we spoke openly about not telling our parents about what we did or what just happened, but we all knew that this was not a good topic of conversation. So we wasted time elsewhere until we were mostly dry and the trip was almost over before we joined back with my mom and my aunt. They never asked what we were doing, nor did we tell them.

It wasn't until my 20s that we finally told them the story of what we did on that ferry. My mother turned white and said the thing that only makes sense, "MY GOD! You could have been killed!" We just nodded, "That's why we didn't tell you," we replied.