Sometimes it’s the memories of the present you didn’t get that stay with you the longest.
I was six and a half years old that Christmas. As was already our tradition, the children in our family started the celebration early, awake the instant first light whitened the eastern edge of the desert sky, huddled in bed, exchanging excited whispers as we waited for our parents to give the word, then running pell-mell into the living room and diving into the long-yearned for stack of wrapped presents under the tree.
As we earnestly shredded our way through our respective piles, at some point I realized that the present I really wanted was not in evidence.
I wanted a gun.
Not a real gun mind you. Although my dad had already taken me out to the range to practice shooting soda cans with his 22, mom never would have allowed it. No, the gun I longed for was a miniature replica of a genuine Kentucky long-rifle, a desire first stoked by the television show starring the redoubtable Fess Parker as Daniel Boone, then confirmed by a trip to Disneyland’s Frontierland, from which I emerged with a coon-skin cap and a serious gun-crush.
It was all I talked about for months. My brothers and I would dash back and forth across our back yard, repelling invaders with sticks (there was a lot of construction near our home at the time and we found that surveyors stakes, sturdy with a point at the end, not only made perfect swords but would magically replenish themselves every week or so after we had broken the other ones), or using our hands and making pretend gun sounds. It is a fact that little boys—even those whose parents abhor violence and wouldn’t dream of letting their child near a toy weapon—can produce an astonishing range of faux shooting, fighting and blowing-up sounds.
We acted out endlessly the few battle scenes we knew, mainly the Alamo (already fighting losing battles, I was destined to be a progressive), and would battle to the end and die gloriously.
I wanted that gun, and nothing but that gun for Christmas. Had it been under my tree, I would easily have been the most hated and envied boy in the neighborhood. With it I would have rid our nation of more imagined enemies than George W. Bush.
But it wasn’t there, and now I only had one chance left.
When I was born, because we were very poor, both of my parents had to work at first. While they were at work I was cared for by a childless couple I knew as Uncle Roy and Aunt Betty, who were friends of the family. They loved kids—wanted some of their own but for a long while were unable to have them—and they became a second family to me.
Among the perks of this arrangement was that, until they moved away, at Christmas every year I got an additional “big” present, a second Santa gift if you will. Now they were my only hope. I thought had made what I wanted for Christmas perfectly clear to all. Hopefully they had listened.
Their arrival, later that morning, started inauspiciously. The gift, handed over promptly, seemed a little light. Actually a lot light.
There are moments in life that test your character and prove out who you really are. This was one of those moments.
Only an optimist—and I am indeed a confirmed, life-long, card-carrying optimist—could look at a package 18 inches long, half as wide, three inches thick and weighing about 15 ounces, and imagine that it would contain an object four feet long and that weighs five pounds.
But I did. Maybe it had to be assembled. Maybe there was a coupon and you had to go get it. Maybe the progressive caucus would hang tough and it would get fixed in conference.
But , alas, it wasn’t to be. In its place, packaged cheerily in cardboard and plastic, was a shiny new Daniel Boone plate, bowl, cup, fork and spoon set.
I stared blankly at the gift for a moment.
I felt like one of those people—what do they call them, the Polar Bear club I think—who in mid-winter put on swimsuits, run down to the edge of the coldest body of water they can find, and throw themselves in.
No, worse than that, because at least those people expect the blow. They do it to themselves.
This had been done to me. This was like running naked through the snow at a ski-lodge and jumping into what you have been led to believe was a tub of hot bubbly and getting neck deep in liquid snow. My ace in the hole had given me kitchenware.
Kitchenware with Daniel Boone’s name and face on it. Which was just wrong to begin with. It betrayed a fundamental lack of understanding of what was important. You can put Daniel Boone’s name on a gun or a knife, or a hatchet. On anything fashioned out of varmint pelts. Maybe on camping equipment. But no place else unless it has the room and heft to hack the name in with axe-cut letters.
This wasn’t the gift I wanted. It wasn’t within 100 miles of what I wanted. In fact, it completely missed the point of what I wanted. And to take this steaming pile of cheap, plastic, made-in-Hong-Kong, merchandizing and think by putting Daniel Boone’s name on it I would be satisfied by that?
That didn’t merely insult my intelligence. I had been betrayed! It simply could not be bourne.
I suppose I could have stood tall and taken it like a man. I could have lied and thanked them. I could have told myself that maybe they would give it to me for my birthday. But I didn’t.
Instead I grabbed the package and flung it across the room. It bounced a couple of times as it skipped through the detritus of Christmas partially past. I ran to my room, where I stayed until my chocolate ran low.
Looking back now, I regret that. Uncle Roy and Aunt Betty must have been running on empty themselves and any gift from them at all was a blessing, but at that age I knew nothing yet of hard times. I thought that they could have done better, and I blamed them for not giving me what I wanted.
Strangely enough, I got more use out of that Daniel Boone set than all the rest of my presents combined. Once I was able to bring myself to use them, they became proud possessions that I defended hotly against encroaching siblings at mealtime.
And though the baseball gloves, the plastic toys, the children's books, and the various board games I was gifted with during my childhood have all passed out of my life, part of that set—the plate—remains to this day stacked among the plates in at my mother’s house. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the only childhood Christmas gift I received that isn’t in a landfill somewhere.
And when I visit my mom and see it, it retains a kind of emotional patina that reminds me of the warmth and love I enjoyed with the people who were in my life at that time.
Who knew? This from a gift I once felt insulted by.
I’ll admit it. I feel deeply disappointed by where we stand today with health care reform. I never thought we would get single payer, but with our Democratic numbers in congress I expected better.
Some will acknowledge disappointment but caution not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I’m not sure there ever was a baby in the bathwater that now constitutes health care reform, but it sure doesn’t look like it’s in there now. Maybe toenail clippings and couple of strands of hair. But that’s about it.
Maybe this too will seem better in time. I am told that some were disappointed with Social Security when it was first passed.
What about you? As we less-than-eagerly await the senate and house to conference out anything of remaining value in the two health care bills, what Christmas gifts have you had that turned out better—or worse—than you expected?