Lyn and I enjoyed a very wonderful and quiet Christmas. She sings in a church choir. They had a few extra practice sessions and a Christmas Eve performance. Other than that, we mostly stayed home and enjoyed time together and with our animals.
We have a cat named Harry and five chickens that are spending their first Christmas and winter with us. It is interesting to observe the young chicken girls as they deal with their first cold weather. They have been sleeping in a smaller mobile chicken house that is separate from the girls main building. We have noticed that they are spending more time in that building as it becomes colder. That building has heat available when the colder temperatures arrive.
As a young boy attending Edgewood Grade School, I had a paper route. Many of my customers gave me a present for Christmas. Some would give me a Christmas card with a nice financial gift.
I also received many boxes of chocolate covered cherries. As I recall, I might have 15 to 18 boxes each year. I remember delivering the newspapers while riding my bicycle. I had a newspaper saddlebag that was attached to my bike. I remember delivering the newspapers and replacing them in the saddlebags with candy boxes.
This year, I was in a store when I noticed a large display of chocolate covered cherries in those exact same packages. I purchased a dozen of them. I delivered a box to several neighbors. I gave a couple of them to some friends. I opened one of them for myself. But I saved one and placed it in the newspaper tube holder that is attached to our mailbox post for our morning newspaper carrier to have at least one box of chocolate covered cherries.
I enjoy visiting on the telephone with friends and family that we can’t be together with during the holidays. Lyn spent time reconnecting with her family members that live away from us. I talked with my sister, Kathy; who lives with her husband in Austin, Texas.
I also get several calls from friends and some were quite a surprise. I had a nice talk with former high school classmate Bob Rosebrook and a fellow, Bill Perry, who worked with us when my dad had the Sunoco station on Madison Avenue. It was nice to hear from them.
I was very surprised last week when I heard of the passing of Betty White, who was just a couple of weeks from her 100th birthday. I was impressed with the way so many commentators and her friends honored her.
I feel a special connection with her and the cast of the Mary Tyler Moore television show. Many years ago, I was flying from Indianapolis to Los Angeles. After a plane change in St. Louis, I ended up sitting across the aisle from Moore.
We started talking and before long we were looking out the plane’s windows trying to guess what cities that we were flying over. It was the middle of the night. We hardly ever knew if we were making the correct guess.
During that flight, Mary explained to me that she had a brand-new television show in the works. I knew her from her playing Dick VanDyke’s wife on his show. She told me several things about her new show. She was returning from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area where she had just filmed a part of the introduction to the show.
I remember her saying to me that she had been filming outside and she tossed her winter hat in the air as she spun around. She told me to watch for that. She told very few people about that move. Several months later, saw the show and her tossing her hat in the air. This is a connection that I will never forget, and also with Betty White.
I did fall asleep early Friday on New Year’s Eve, but fireworks woke me at midnight. I stood up and lifted my left foot because I wanted to get 2022 off on the “right foot.”
Happy New Year.