Post Scripts: Christmases past and present

I have been writing Christmas columns in one newspaper or another for around 70 years.

I’m not sure that is a record for a newspaper guy but it began when I wrote a column during the Christmas season in a very small newspaper I had launched on the east side of Kansas City. At that time I was also working nights at The Kansas City Star where I have always said, and it is the truth, I received what I consider the equivalent of a college education in journalism and newspapering.

Then came World War II and I spent four Christmases in the Army; two as a corporal and two at as lieutenant in that war – plus still another while in Korea as a captain assisting war correspondents get their combat stories – with often a gale north wind sweeping down out of Siberia. Christmas didn’t mean much since I was away from Kathy, family and friends.

I believe I wrote some years ago in this space about a Christmas in Korea where our headquarters entertained a group of Korean children from a nearby orphanage. These children were mostly just a few years from babyhood and our hearts ached for them,

since they were separated from their parents and they had been largely ignored in the carnage and horror of war.

There were no suitable trees in the area, at least one suitable for a Yule tree, so we cut up a few wooden ration boxes for branches and used a tent pole for the tree trunk, drilling in some holes to stick the branches in place. It was surely crude but I will never forget how much our orphan guests enjoyed their party. For most of them, it was their first and perhaps only American Christmas – but some of them will surely remember how happy they made their GI friends.

However, that Christmas is paled by the wonderful Christmases Kathy and I, and our daughters Kathy Ann and Cindy, enjoyed while living in Gallatin with neighbors, friends. I remember one time too, when friends were stranded in town because of snow drifts southwest of town. We have sorely missed the great Christmases we had while residents there, almost half a century of modest but rewarding living among some of the finest people in the world.

I guess in this column I am trying to tell you how much we have missed Gallatin, our neighbors, friends and acquaintances, since moving to Texas (three years come next July)

and I wake up a lot of mornings wishing we hadn’t moved. However, we greatly enjoy being closer to family here. It is exciting to watch Molly grow up and her mom progress professionally in her journalism career at UT. By the way, Molly broke a finger during a school basketball game this month, but took it all in stride.

Secondly, it is good our other daughter, Cindy, is just a day and a half away by auto when we feel like a visit is in order. We still have two grandsons, and two great grandchildren in Missouri which we will greatly miss at Christmastime.

So we are looking forward to another fine Christmas here, but we will never forget our friends and neighbors there, especially those who made up the newspaper staff when we ran it. Had it not been for them, and the friends we value so much, we might not be missing Gallatin so terribly. So Kathy and I wish for all of you a wonderful Christmas and, for Gallatin, a better year than this one. You will never know how much we care.