Joyeux Noël
Fröhliche Weinachten
Feliz Navidad
Buon Natale
We met Jeanne’s three singers long ago, when driving through the old walled town of Rothenburg one winter. We’re not sure what we believe in, but it seems we believe in Christmas, or more specifically, the Christmas holidays. We know the holidays’ disheartening mercenary aspect, plastic Santas leering at us five minutes after Thanksgiving, a kind of bullying jolliness pouring out of every corner, radio, and screen. (In NYC I thought I heard “Ho-ho-ho” rising like steam from a sidewalk grate — Santa’s trapped down there!) Those charming German singers delivered an interlude that we all seek: generosity and friendliness forming a kind of grace. They also reminded me of my first Christmas abroad, which occurred nearby.
When you read this, we’ll be shivering in New York, after spending Christmas at our son Pete’s house in New Jersey, along with the rest of our lively international family. Gifts have been exchanged, our brilliant grandchildren will have matured enormously since we last saw them, and Pete has been galloping back and forth to his wine cellar. Now we’re getting our annual big-city fix.
But, beginning this column back in St. Pete, my mind went rummaging overseas, among Christmases past, like Ebenezer Scrooge without the trauma. These overseas “holidays” began in 1956, when I was stationed in Würzburg, a university city and Army base 35 miles north of Rothenberg. On Christmas our sergeants were disappointed that we weren’t in Budapest “killing Ruskies,” who had crushed the Hungarian revolution a few weeks earlier; but we were still on alert in case President Eisenhower changed his mind and sent us in.
Mere PFC draftees were restricted to the Army base on Christmas, and three of us, Greg, Murray, and myself, were confined to barracks because we had missed a recent curfew. Undeterred from enjoying a Christmas celebration, we’d saved a large bottle of whiskey for the occasion and smuggled some eggnog from the commissary. Drinking was forbidden in the barracks but we figured, Who would check on us at Christmas? Trapped in our severe spotless barracks, we filled my helmet with whiskey and eggnog and passed it around, pretending we were in Paris, which as yet we’d never seen. We were clueless young soldiers with unfocused bookish inclinations, which became more and more unfocused as the afternoon floated by. The only specific thing I remember is that Murray, who came from Greenwich Village near Patchin Place where the poet E. E. Cummings lived, had a book of his, also smuggled, which we passed around and read out loud. Many sweet and sexy love poems, anti-war and anti-government poems; and finally we took turns reading Cummings’ short parody of Longfellow’s “The Psalm of Life” (“Life is real! Life is Earnest!”) which goes: “what does little Earnest croon/in his death at afternoon?/(kow dow r 2 bul retoinis/wus de woids uf lil oinis”). We knew it was about Hemingway, and loved the weird and rebellious spelling.
By this time we were dancing around the helmet and laughing so loudly we didn’t hear the sergeant coming (we had figured incorrectly). He sneered at the mess and the empty helmet, took the book and what remained in the bottle, and gave us two more weeks’ confinement to barracks. We shook hands and retired to our bunks, agreeing that it was our best Christmas ever. That wasn’t true at all, but we were very happy not to be fighting in Budapest.
Murray died a few years ago, and would’ve been proud that his obituary referred to him as a “Greenwich Village” character. This week, Jeanne and I will be certain to wander through his favorite hangout, the old Strand Book Store on 12th Street, still hanging in there.
We hope you all also had the best Christmas ever, but more sensible. May you have a safe and peaceful New Year, and remember to write “2019” on your new checks.
Feliz Natal
Vrolijk Kerstfeest
Crãciun Fericit
Wesołych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia (pronounced, roughly, “V’sowish Shviont B’zhaygo Narodzhaynya” very fast!)
This article appears in Dec 20-27, 2018.