The power of a single gift
Every Christmas up until that one in 1973, my brothers and I received a bounty of Christmas gifts from Santa. In retrospect, I don't think my parents were lavish in their Santa-playing. We certainly weren't spoiled, but we generally got most of everything we asked for from the Sears Christmas Wish Book. None of it was that expensive, but it was a pretty good haul. We shared with one another and so it was like Christmas times three.
That's why the Christmas of 1973 was a shock to the system.
We came down the stairs on Christmas morning to find . . . that Santa had given each of us just one gift - a 10-speed bicycle. We were not mature enough to understand that the value of this one gift equaled or surpassed the bounty from the previous years. Through a greedy and Grinchy lens, we saw the reduction in volume. Several gifts down to just one gift. It was also raining outside.
We laugh about it now, but our reaction was perfectly human. We were disappointed. Bah-humbug. The Christmas joy was over pretty quickly. I think my brother Tim went back to bed.
Fast-forward to this fall season - 44 years in the future.
I am writing the final book, Hickory Trail, in my three-book series about growing up in 1960s and 1970s north Georgia. The main character is Frank Wilcox and his life is based in part on my own memories. One of the chapters of the new book is about that Christmas we each got a bicycle . . . and some candy in a stocking . . . and an orange. Our reactions were indeed priceless.
A little later in the book, I wrote about the day I decided that my job at a local pizza restaurant was going nowhere. A new editor of the local newspaper had moved to town. Before the start of my sophomore year in high school, I decided to walk two miles to town, surprise the new local editor, and ask him for a job.
It was so hot outside on that August day, and too hot for a walk to town. That's when I noticed the bicycle parked under the driveway. It represented transportation. So, I rode that bicycle to town, surprised the local editor, asked for a job, and - much to my stunned surprise - was given a job. I was paid $15 per week for working after school every day plus another $3 for helping provide sports coverage at local high school events (that I was going to attend anyway). I was also given a Georgia Press Association press card.
Every single word that I have written since 1974 is due to the mentoring I received while working during high school at the local newspaper. Working at the local newspaper opened the door for me to receive a Georgia Press Association grant that paid for my tuition all four years at the University of Georgia. That newspaper job also opened the door for me to work during college at the daily newspapers in Athens, GA. I was representing the newspaper when I went to a local beauty pageant to take photographs of the winner. My Vicki won that pageant.
As I wrote the new book, and these two different chapters - one about Christmas 1973 and the other about going to work at the newspaper - I sat back and noticed the fateful connection between the two stories. The connection was the bicycle. I didn't appreciate receiving it like I appreciate where it took me.
When people ask about my favorite Christmas, it will be one of the ones I got to play Santa for my own boys - or the year I got a cassette tape recorder. If I'm asked to name the most meaningful Christmas, it will be the first one spent with my Vicki (1981).
If I'm asked to name the Christmas that most impacted my life, it will be 1973 and the year that all I received was the 10-speed bicycle. What you perceive as today's disappointment or setback might end up being the one thing that positively changes your life forever.
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