Best Gifts

A few weekends ago, as I was putting up all over my house many happy little snowman figures - cookie jars, plates, snow globes, tea light holders, and soft, fluffy fellas - I listened to some Gordon Lightfoot records. They and a record player had just arrived from my sister Vinca as a late birthday gift. I played one LP right after another, because my siblings and I were practically raised on Gord's music, and the whirr of the player transported me straight back to my childhood. In particular, the album Salute held charm for me, because I distinctly remembered being with my dad when he bought it in Nashville. I stopped decorating, sat in our drab recliner and just listened, rocked and rested. All I needed was a really nice glass of wine to make my afternoon perfect.

I entered a sort of "great gifts" trance in which I recalled all the wonderful gifts I have received from my brother and sisters over the years, like that time Natie sent me the soundtrack to "The Last Unicorn", my favorite movie from my childhood...or the book of Opera Librettos he gave to me one Christmas. I thought of all The Beatles CDs my sister Vinca had given to me in my teenage years. And Annie? Well, she introduced me to my future husband. Natie then flew me out to meet him in Texas, and Annie paid for my wedding dress!

But...what great things had I given to my siblings? Certainly not a spouse or a really expensive dress or wonderful records from their favorite singer of all time. I could only hope there was something somewhere that I forgot but that they treasured. Sure, I've given them Christmas and birthday presents, sent flowers, and written about them, but I could not think of any really great treasure I had bestowed. That doesn't mean I didn't try, but I just don't feel my gifts were up to snuff, really.

Simply looking around my home, I saw precious gifts from family and friends. Each and every snowman that smiled at me from his sweet, frozen face beneath his stocking/top hat was given to me by a beloved someone who knew they couldn't go wrong with a snowman for Hillary. My parents gave me an enchanting snow globe and one of my first cookie jars, a rotund guy with little birdie footprints on his belly. My friend Geraldine just dropped off a baker snow lady currently presiding with her gingerbread over my shelf. Matthew gave me my favorite cookie jar after we married. Later, he bought me cherished plates with dapper dancing snowmen, of which, sadly - as is my habit - I have broken three.

Thinking of Matthew brought memories of how he gave me something that would begin a life-long infatuation on our first Christmas together. Of course - shame on me - I didn't think it was going to be a great gift. I thought he was going to give me something entirely different at the time, for my dad convinced me that Matthew had confided in him what he'd chosen. I began to dog Dad with questions about whether the present was useful (heaven forbid!), shiny, wearable, precious or edible. Dad told me things like:

"Well, it looks really good underneath the window - it reflects the light nicely. Might be best on a table...no, wait - too heavy! It's kind of oblong...ish. Pretty big actually, but not too large! The perfect size..."

The next time I asked, the reply went something like, "It's something you should put on the floor, come to think of it, probably by the TV. It's really kind of boxy - no, semi-circular. Very unique!"

I was so confused...and gullible. In the car on the way to work one morning, I begged Dad to tell me outright what the heck my present was from Matthew. Dad darted a glance at Mom and then at me in the rearview.

"Well, Hillary, I really didn't want to tell you this. But, here goes. What Matthew really got you was a...uh...a pair of skiis!"

I sat bolt upright in the back seat of our car. My face felt hot and my eyes bulgy.

"Skiis!" I shrieked. "Wh...what? I told him I will never go skiing! I am not going to break my neck on some slope, darnit! What was he thinking? He can just keep them for himself then - I told him I do not like adventure sports! How is he even going to get those here?"

I was so busy with my rant that it took me a few moments to register Mom's hysterical laughter and to notice Dad's wicked grin and twinkling eyes in the rearview. Shoot! He had been teasing me the whole time.

Of course, when Matthew did give me my gift, I didn't exactly say the most ladylike 'thank you'. Instead, I turned to my mom and said with as much excitement as I could muster, "Look, Mama...he got me a box!"

It was a ceramic, red and green, present-shaped box. Not exactly my sort of thing.

Matthew laughed and admonished, "No - open it up!"

Inside was the most beautiful turquoise bracelet. I was bowled over. He confided in me that the ceramic gift box had not been his idea. He had wanted to get a simpler cardboard one with a snowman on it, but his aunt had told him it was not fancy enough. I assured him I would have loved that cardboard snowman.

Ironically, I also gave him a bracelet that year, an I.D. bracelet with his name on it (in case he ever forgot while on a walk after drinks in a strange city) and a sappy inscription on the back that told him he was my knight. He stopped wearing it the day after we got married, I think. However, the bracelet he gave to me has yet to be usurped in my estimation. It is my absolute favorite piece of jewelry.

And that brings me back to the point: I am given the best gifts, but I am not the best giver. I mean, I did give Matthew tickets to an Arizona Cardinals game last year...but they lost that game. And they were already out of the playoffs anyway.

Meanwhile, surrounding me are a thousand blessings from loving friends and family. There's the teddy bear, Oonie, that my brother Nate got for our Gabriella that she adores more than any stuffed animal has even been adored, I think. There's Tigey, the stuffed white tiger, that Uncle Roberto gave to Danny. And, ah yes - the games. I have raised my kids on games, taught them their numbers and colors with games, and Doodle Dice, from my husband's brother, is currently Danny Sam's favorite game; he nearly always wins, too! There are the multiple books on my bookshelves that Vinca has sent to my kids with inscriptions in her beautiful handwriting noting the date and the occasion, and those just keep giving each time I read to my children. There's the very special Book 3 of Kelven's Riddle that my dad signed for his namesake, Daniel. Upon our tree hangs an abundance of ornaments that Vinca has sent to the kids, reflecting their ages and interests from year to year. Yes, none of these last mentioned gifts were given to me personally, but the joy they have brought to my children brings me joy, too.

What did I do to earn these wonderful presents? How is it so many people I love know just what will bring happiness? I can only try my best to give what will bring joy in return and say thank you.

And gratitude brings me at last in my reflection on great gifts to that first and most extraordinary gift of Christmas. What can any of us give in return for Him but love and gratitude? No other gift can ever compare. Because none of these other things I've received - however lovingly and thoughtfully they were given - could ever top the Gift that truly and continually keeps giving what we really need and long for, strength, guidance, community, hope, faith, and awe, this Gift bestowed on whoever will and can accept it. He was humbly bestowed upon all mankind in a stable, and the joy I feel when I think of Him is boundless. I can never repay Him or earn the Gift. I can only say thank you every day as I attempt to comprehend and reflect His infinite love and try, Try, TRY to be like Him.

This Christmas I thank God and all my family and friends for the joy I have found because of that great catalyst of gift-giving, that eternal spring of generosity in which I hope to grow every year: Love.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16

Merry Christmas and may God bless us, everyone!

Oh, Christmas Tree!

I hit the sauce three Sunday nights ago. After upending an entire box of ornaments on the floor, I knew the wrong Christmas spirit had gotten to me. Normally a family tree-trimming party wouldn't drive me to drink, but it just so happened that this one took place without ornament hangers, and those ancient, taken-for-granted, rusty ornament hangers - wherever they may be, God rest their souls - refused to show up for the occasion, like the Van Trapp family singers in "The Sound of Music".

I ended up in high dudgeon, ferreting through closets, cabinets, and storage boxes with increasing negative energy. The more I searched futilely, the more my heart shrunk a few sizes too small until I was tempted to tell my kids to grab some glitter, stale cookies and silly string and have at the tree.

With all the insanity that I heaped upon myself just within those first days of December, I - very predictably - began to reminisce about the "good old days", the "simpler times" of yore: my childhood Christmases.

How lovely those tree-trimming days were, how organized and how traditional in rural Tennessee! I thought. But as I watched Matthew and Berto, my oldest son, wrapping and unwrapping and rewrapping out artificial tree in lights, fussing all the way, I had similar visions of my dad uttering choice words under his breath as he battled strings of old lights and a metal tree stand with a profound preference for a tilted tree.

Most years in my childhood, we walked across the field behind our house and into our own woods a couple of weeks into December, Dad's loyal Lab Rueben carrying an ax in his mouth. Mama was the evergreen aficionado, so she had no qualms about turning down cold our suggestions for trees with "character", instead marching us through that forest until we found the fullest, tallest, most evenly branched tree that would fit into our humble living room. Hauling it home was a snap; Dad did all the work while we kids crowded behind, trying to jump over its tip-top. When we reached the porch, we stood back - except for the poor kid assigned to keep the door flat against the wall - while he and Nate shoved that big tree in the house and leaned it in the far corner.

Next we ascended up to and then rummaged through that dimly lit lair of poisonous spiders, our attic. Mom and Dad did most of the reconnoitering while we kids supported them by digging industriously through boxes of abandoned, broken toys. When they finally found the Christmas boxes, Dad hauled them down the rickety, fold-up stairs.

That evening he wrangled first with the temperamental tree stand, sometimes nailing it loudly to the floor, and then with the bunched lights, muttering sweet nothings under his breath at every tangle and busted bulb while we kids giggled into our sleeves, sometimes using those sleeves to wipe our mouths of the hot cocoa Mama had made.

Every year there was the same debate between Mom and Dad: to flock or not to flock. I'm pretty sure Mom kept hidden canisters of flocking in the dark recesses of the attic to conjure up when she got her way. She loved a white tree. It must have reminded her of  growing up in Idaho. Dad was against anything unnatural, and a snowy tree was hardly likely in Tennessee - even in winter - indoors. Plus like all of us, I think he hated the fake-snow initiation, for as Mom busily flocked that poor tree with a wicked smile of delight upon her face, the rest of us were standing twenty yards back, coughing and waving our hands in the air to move the cloud of chemicals off to our neighbors. It was a toxic holiday experience. Sure the tree looked nice and snowy, but when we had adorned the tree with miscellaneous decorations, white residue abided on our fingers for weeks, evidence of Mom's dastardly deed to that poor evergreen tree...

Finally, when prep work was done and Dad and Mom sat on the couch, reconciled, they began to pass out the decorations to us kids. The colored balls came first, and a color was assigned to each child.

"Blue for my firstborn," Dad said to Vinca as he handed her the first ornament.

"Gold for my golden-haired girl," he said to Annie with her long, blonde hair.

"Red for my only son." That one for Nate, born on Dad's birthday.

Lastly, he handed me a green ball. "And green for my nature girl." I was his only bonafide tree-hugger.

After that we each took turns coming to the couch for the next ornament, treasured ornaments like Natie's little baseball player and my felt snowman and a suncatcher unicorn of Annie's. I guess it was because of that yearly ritual that I remembered our Christmases being calmer, more traditional. Our ornaments were always the same year to year, the only additions being any baubles we made in school, like clothespin soldiers. Our tree topper never varied and was always welcomed excitedly each December. She was a smaller paper angel with short, gold curls and a plastic hoop and face, humble like our home. We four kids took turns putting her atop that tree, her little hymnal bent in her tiny fingers. She had blonde hair and had been purchased after Vinca was born. Vinca and Annie both were towheaded as babies and toddlers, and the angel reminded my dark-haired parents of their first baby girl.

Ah, those were the days! And yet I think that perhaps - just perhaps - those days were simpler because we were poorer; we had less to fuss over and about. Nevertheless, as my parents hunted with four rowdy rascals for a tree, dug through a dirty, spider-infested attic, and wrangled with lights and an heirloom stand, they probably had some stressful Christmas moments. But - God bless them - they were good at keeping traditions, even the tradition of arguing over flocking.

As for my family? After replacing those AWOL hangers with a package of flashy fresh gold ones for a whopping 79 cents, I practically threw my kids' special ornaments at them the moment they woke up; whoever awoke first got to attack their ornaments in mass before school. It was a race to see how quickly in spare moments we could deck the tree, because all the boxes piled in my tiny living room were freaking me out and causing me to OCDrink. There was no rhyme or ritual, I'm afraid. And, yet, my children's excitement over favorite ornaments, many from Aunt Vinca, was not abated by my slapdash approach to decorating.

And this year my son Berto just happened to find our first angel for the top of the tree. For years I've looked for her. She had to be simpler and considerably smaller than many I saw in stores with elaborate and wildly different attire. Berto found her one happy Sunday afternoon in a discount store as we waited for takeout pizza. Unlike the angel of my childhood, she is fragile. But as our lights reflect off her simple white porcelain, she has, along with our abundance of eclectic ornaments, helped me to reclaim that good, old-fashioned Christmas spirit I sometimes think I left behind with that little girl in Tennessee.

Sunlight on the Forest Floor: Preparation and Celebration, Old and New

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 (NAB)

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
Behold I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the desert:
"Prepare the way of the Lord,
Make straight his paths."
John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. (Mark 1:2-5)
And this is what he proclaimed: One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."(Mark 1:7-8)

The huge, beautiful wreath is on the altar steps at my parish. Two Sundays have come in with that Advent wreath. Two of its purple candles have been lit; a pink and purple one remain.

How I love Advent, that time of reflection and preparation for the second coming of Christ and for the celebration of His first, His birth. I am grateful for Advent. Instead of hustle and bustle through malls, guided by lists, it is about contemplation and watchfulness in our lives, guided by Scripture.
Church is the place, the most serene place, where I can go to prepare my heart and soul for Christmas, though I do a very imperfect job of it. But without that spiritual haven I fear I would be a very stressed-out Scrooge, lost in a sea of consumerism.

My parents always made sure that Jesus was foremost in our home, but for most of my life Christmas was a day out of the year. It showed up on the 25th of December, and what came before was mostly a bunch of wishing and hoping and scrambling. If there was a season leading to it, it was a season of worrying about gifts, cleaning house, decorating, preparing food, and listening to holiday tunes. After December 25th passed I did not know the Christmas season continued through the celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany, that feast commemorating the Three Kings, representative of all gentiles, bringing gifts to our Lord: Prophet, Priest and King. I didn't know that for many the Christmas season only ended after the celebration of the Baptism of Jesus on a Sunday in January. I didn't know, because I wasn't Catholic.

I never grasped the joy and depth and spiritual variety there was to be found in a year - not even the joy to be found in Christmas and especially Easter - until I understood the times of preparation in the Catholic liturgical calendar. Then something strange occurred; as I contemplated that calendar, I began to make a deeper connection between the Old and the New Testament. Before - undoubtedly through my own fault - there was a big disconnect.

As Christians we know that God told the Israelites to observe certain fasts and feasts every year. Passover was to be ...a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate with pilgrimage to the Lord, as a perpetual institution. (Exodus 12) God also commanded, Three times a year you shall celebrate a pilgrim feast to me. (Exodus 23:14) Many times the Israelites were to abstain from leavened bread and make designated offerings to God. Now, because we have received the spirit of adoption, all our feasts and fasts - Pentecost and the Mass of the Lord's Supper, for example - revolve around Christ, and we believe that those Old Testament observances were a prefigurement of the New Covenant Jesus established. He was the fulfillment.

So when we fast and give alms for the forty days of Lent before Easter - in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who are truly suffering in this world - we are imitating Christ's fast in the desert (and the wondering of the Israelites before entering the Promised Land) and thus preparing ourselves to celebrate Easter in a more profound way. For we believe Easter, like Christmas, is not just a day that shows up out of the blue. Before we welcome it, our hope is to deepen our relationship with God by truly examining ourselves and our sins and picking up our cross and following Jesus. A week before Easter we attend Palm Sunday Mass, carrying palm branches and singing, "Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" and reading Jesus' Passion aloud. During the Triduum we celebrate the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper when we read the account of the First Passover and the Last Supper, and the priest washes the feet of twelve people - men, women and children - in imitation of Christ. The next night we attend Good Friday Mass, and parishioners carry in a wooden cross, pausing three times, in imitation of the one our Savior carried. Then comes Holy Saturday Night when we trace salvation history through multiple Scripture readings from Genesis to the Gospel, and finally dawns Easter morning, and again we rejoice and sing at Mass, Alleluia!

Advent and Lent are our spiritual journeys - following Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, walking and fasting with Christ in the desert - to the holiest days of the year: Christmas and Easter. The purpose is always the same in these seasons of our year of faith: to remind us of important events in our salvation history and to prepare us to welcome more fully the bountiful blessings and grace we receive from our Maker.

Our liturgical year began anew the first Sunday of Advent, and again we will try, yes - try - to prepare ourselves for Christ. Not by making lists and checking them twice, not by cooking mounds of cookies, not by worrying about whether we're spending enough or too much on gifts, and not by sending Christmas cards will we ready ourselves. Instead, we will prepare ourselves by coming to Mass and lighting the wreath to remind us of the Light of the World. We will hopefully ponder how we can reflect more of that Light as we kneel and pray and receive communion and, along with thousands of our brothers and sisters in Christian churches around the world, sing:

O come, O come, Emmanuel

And ransom captive Israel

 

That mourns in lonely exile here

 

Until the Son of God appear

 

Rejoice! Rejoice!

 

Emmanuel

 

Shall come to you, 

O Israel

And Jesus will be our Lord of the Dance throughout the liturgical year.

Berto and St. Nick

Though I've grown old, the bell still rings for me...

I've always cried at the end of "The Polar Express". My family knows it, waits for the right part and then turns to see my wet face. They roll their eyes and sigh, "Oh, Mama..."

I can't help it. I love that line. I love the whole movie. We bought it for our Berto and Ana when they were small. It's in our rotation every Christmas season, and one year Matthew and I painted our living room over a few days while the kids watched it again and again.

But this past Saturday I cried the most I believe I have ever done. I cried in places I never have before.

"Wow, you're bad this year, Mama," my son Berto said, and I mouthed back, "It's because of you."

I feel like some magic has been lost, fairy dust spilt, imagination dulled and jolly old St. Nicholas has lost his red coat and his belly laugh.

This past summer Matthew and I confirmed for Berto that Santa does not exist in the way we had led him to believe so carefully for so long - longer than we could have hoped the magic to last.

Last year things started to slip when Berto wondered why Santa really spoils some kids but not others (not ours), and I wrote about it in Santa and St. Nick. In the comments from that post, lovely people like my big sister Vinca shared how they felt it could be broken gently to kids - or why they felt it should not be broken at all.

I realize there are many ways to tell your kids about Santa Claus when they inquire.

There's the always classic evasion: "Well, what do you believe?" or, "Do you want to believe?"

There's the favorite-holiday-movie reply, like from "The Polar Express",  "Well, Mama still hears the bell. Do you?"

There's the distraction technique, though hard to keep up: "Who wants to make a batch of Rudolph sugar cookies, frosted with triple sprinkles?" (Try not to be too obvious.)

Moralizing is always apt, too, with a well-placed, "Santa is in my heart and yours. He's in all of us. Whenever someone is generous, that's the spirit of Santa Claus. We should all believe in Santa Claus."

Or you can be matter-of-fact and say plainly, "No, there is no Santa. It's been your dad and me all along. Now you get to help, too, and carry on the tradition of St. Nick for your little brother and sisters."

We chose the last option, with a philosophical touch, for our 12-year-old son. He had experienced doubts on and off again for a while, but though I generally like telling the truth, sometimes I really wish we had chosen evasion...forever. I wish we hadn't told. We could have been vague, non-committal. We could have honestly said that we still believe. We could have persisted in marking gifts from Santa just as Matthew's parents did until their sons were grown men.

Now every time our younger children mention Santa Claus, Berto smirks, cynically, and turns away. At the mall one night last week, I tried to tell him that I'm a Santa, but I still believe.

He replied, "That doesn't make sense."

I didn't lie. Every time I watch Kris Kringle sing to the little Dutch girl in "Miracle on 34th Street", see the present Santa dropped at Billy's house in "The Polar Express" or watch a tipsy disenfranchised Santa hand out presents in his struggling neighborhood in that "Night of the Meek" episode from the Twilight Zone, I believe. Every Christmas Eve night as I stay up far too late, I believe. Every time I think back to my childhood and that local fireman who brought my family several boxes on a Christmas Eve in a particularly hard year, I really believe.

Ah, well, some may say, he's twelve, after all...

But I want him to rediscover a little of the magic, such as was found in these excerpts from his note to Santa last year:

Dear Santa,

First of all, please do what you can, and I think I've been good enough for what I am going to ask for. For Christmas this year, I really want a Kindle Fire. I would've asked for an I Pad, but I like the idea of a Kindle Fire better. I think I am old enough and responsible enough for it. I would still value family time and the outdoors, & playing.

If I used the apps or watched something on Kindle Fire after school I would use it during t.v. time, unless I was reading a book on it. Also, to get apps & books& movies on it, I would have to do extra chores. This would get me working more, and I think would especially help Mama. I will try (& I hope would be able to keep it up) not to pester Mama about getting on the Kindle Fire. I will try to make her a little more likeable with electronics.

...Also, I can think of a time I would get a lot of use out of it. In 2014, in July, we are going to Hawaii. It is a 10 hour trip from here to there. (I think the airline might have free wifi, Hopefully.)

...If I don't get a Kindle Fire, then it is up to you what I get for Christmas. You know best. My parents haven't noted that they want anything yet. I will keep you updated. Lastly, thank you for everything you do for the children of the world. You make Christmas more joyous for them. God & Jesus bless you, and Merry Christmas! I hope you enjoy it. Thank you again,

Berto

(P.S. We'll be in New Mexico.)


He got the Kindle Fire.

Ghost of Behavior Past by Daniel Hylton

Throughout the late '70s and into the early '80s, while my marriage was new and my children were young, I worked for a large Southeastern construction company.

I was good at my job and I made a lot of money.  A lot of money - especially for those years. There were times when I would have two or three thousand dollars worth of un-cashed checks in my wallet.

By 1984, however, I had apparently tired of being successful and making prodigious sums of money.  I wanted something less.

I decided to leave my high-paying job constructing transcontinental power lines and try my hand at - of all things - songwriting.  So, I moved to rural Tennessee, about an hour west of Nashville.  Now, because one needs free time to pursue songwriting, it is very difficult to maintain steady employment.  As a consequence of this fact, I odd-jobbed, taking temporary work where I could find it, gradually descending into poverty, dragging my young wife and children with me.  (Why Karen did not leave me for a man with a job and a fully functioning brain, taking the children with her, I will never fully understand.)

Desperate to combine my inexplicable need to be creative with my obviously explicable need for cash, I began to enter the various songwriting contests hosted by the nightspots around Nashville.

And I won a few, sometimes winning ten or twenty dollars, enough for milk, bread, and maybe a pair of shoes for one of the little ones.  Usually, though, the prize was something insubstantial, such as getting your name written on the wall in magic marker, or a free bottle of beer.

Then I heard about this contest on Music Row itself, at a more upscale joint called The Dive.

The winner would get one hundred dollars.

One Hundred Dollars!

Now, I know that doesn't sound like much now, but back then a hundred bucks paid for most of a month's rent or bought groceries for the family for a whole week.  And the contest, at the time, was being held weekly, so there would be a continuing chance to win.

On the appointed night, I put on my best pair of dark blue Levis, my crispest white shirt, tuned up my guitar, and headed into town to The Dive.

There were a lot of really good songwriters present that night, and I heard many tunes that made me think I might be way out of my league.  I was so nervous that my bladder sent me scurrying to the men's room again and again.  Nonetheless, when they called my name, I screwed up my courage and went up on stage which was occupied by just a stool and a mike.  I sat down with my guitar on my knee and spun to face the crowd.  For a moment, I thought they'd all left the building.  You see, though the stage was fully lit, the patrons sat in the dimness beyond the footlights - and the lights shining on me were so bright that I could barely make out the room, let alone individuals in the crowd, which was the largest group of people that I had ever confronted when armed only with a musical instrument.

I mumbled something by way of introduction and immediately swung into my first song, briskly setting pick to guitar string.

I looked out, opened my mouth -

- and forgot the words to the song.  A song which I wrote.

There followed then a long - way too long - awkward pause while, like the proverbial deer, I gazed into the headlights of oncoming disaster and frantically searched the dark recesses of my skull for phrases that I recognized and might possibly utter in tune-like fashion while strumming a guitar.

And then, as the disapproving silence thickened, the words finally came.

"Alrighty, folks," I stated brightly, affecting what I hoped would be a magnificent recovery, and once again put pick to string.  "Here we go....."

One strum, and - Boing! - the pick slipped from my fingers, ricocheted underneath the strings, and disappeared through the sound hole into the dark interior of my guitar.  I looked down, stunned.

And my brain froze.

Forgetting in that terrible moment that there were two or three spare picks in my pocket, and sadly forgetting that there were also a couple of hundred people immediately to my front, I upended the guitar, holding it aloft, shaking it above my head while I desperately tried to dislodge the pick from the black hole whence it had gone.

Sporadic chuckles arose here and there from among the crowd as I continued to wildly agitate the instrument over my head, willing the pick to appear.  Then, as my struggles continued unabated and my hope for a rescued pick remained unrealized, more chuckles, giggles, and outright laughter swelled from the shadowed gathering.

That awful collection of sound caused my brain to lurch forward for one brief moment.  And in that moment, I remembered the extra picks in my pants pocket.  Turning a deaf ear to the scattered giggles and the occasional rude suggestion, I thought bravely - I can still salvage this.

Lowering the guitar to one side, holding it by the neck, I stood, reaching into my pocket.

And the room erupted.

Gales of laughter beat upon me like the waves of a storm-wracked ocean.

Puzzled by the reason for this obvious - and horrifying escalation - of my humiliation, I stared dumbly out at the shadowy crowd for a long moment; and then I looked down.

And the reason for the raucous shouts of laughter became immediately obvious.

Evidently, on my last trip to the men's room, I had neglected to zip up the fly in my blue jeans.

Protruding from that most private of all clothing apertures, extending stiffly outward for five or six inches, was the crisply starched tail of my best white shirt.

The crowd, by that time, had decided that I was not in fact a contestant, but rather the comedic relief.

I, in that same moment, decided that I was done, finished, my short-lived "career" over.

Turning, I fairly leapt from the stage and ran for it, pausing in the artists' room just long enough to sling my guitar into its case, and then I bounded for the side door.  I was running like a rabbit by the time I reached the parking lot.

Three-quarters of an hour later, utterly dejected, having had forty-five long, miserable minutes to ponder one of the most embarrassing evenings of my life, I pulled into the driveway of our modest home.  Karen met me at the door.  I could do nothing but stand there, head down, guitar case in hand, my heart and my dreams squashed like insects upon the walkways of life.

"How did it go?"  She asked - and then I managed lift my head and she saw my face.  "Honey - what happened?"

The kids were in bed, so I put my guitar away while she made us a cup of cocoa; then we went into the living room and sat down on the couch, where I stared down at the carpet and glumly related to her the events of the evening.

It was about the time that I was telling of the unzipped fly and protruding shirt-tail that I heard the stifled guffaw emanating from the general direction of the love of my life.

Startled, I looked over at her.

You know how it is when you want to laugh but know that you shouldn't?  Like when you're at a wedding, or at a funeral, or in church, or like when your beloved husband is laying out the sad details of his recent and raw humiliation, and something just strikes you as too funny?  And the eruption of good humor is abruptly way too urgent to contain or suppress?

You get a terrible case of the internal giggles, your shoulders shake, the corners of your mouth decide that they simply must turn upward despite your best efforts at maintaining decorum, and your eyes water.  Yeah, we all know what that is like.  It has happened to us all.

Well, that was my gentle and genteel wife as I told my tale of woe.

Apparently, she could see the whole thing very clearly with her mind's eye.

She tried to be sympathetic, God bless her; she really did try.

Alas, the droll aspect of the whole sordid affair was too much for her, and eventually she had to gain release.  To this day, however, I am not convinced that it was absolutely necessary it devolve into her lying back against the cushions, gasping for breath as she pointed at me and giggled uncontrollably.  The only consolation I have is that - though she won't admit it - I'm pretty sure she wet herself.

Oh, well.

There is an epilogue to this sorry tale.  Two, actually.

A week later, I tapped a reservoir of courage, went back to The Dive, sang my three songs - and won.  And they had raised the stakes.  First prize was now one hundred and fifty bucks.  The next day, to celebrate, we took the kids to McDonalds for Happy Meals.

The second epilogue is not quite so uplifting as the first, at least for me.  You see, every now and then - as recently as just the other day, in fact - I will find Karen leaning over a counter or sprawled over the back of a chair, fairly convulsing with good humor.  Looking up at me with streaming eyes, she will tender the question between eruptions of giggles.

"Remember that time you went into Nashville to sing in that contest?"

Yes.  Yes, I do.

And it's still not funny.

One doesn't require ghosts, I guess, when one is haunted by his past.



Daniel Hylton is the author of the recently completed Kelven's Riddle series.