Christmas Past and Past and Past

Once again, @coreykilgannon has proved to be a muse for a posting when he posted the adjacent photo of a incredibly denuded Christmas tree already hitting the garbage on December 23. The tree looks like a bomb hit it, or it was sprayed with Agent Orange. It can't have possibly dried out this fast if it was bought this year. Can it?

Well, being bought this year might be the natural assumption, but it definitely looks like a smaller version of one of the three trees my father kept on his terrace in Crystal City, VA when he worked in Washington over 30 years ago.

There was a tree that looked like the one Mr. Kilgannon posted—fully stripped looking; there was another one that still had some needles and green on it, and obviously was the tree that was a year newer than the naked one; then there was the one that had to be last year's tree because it still looked like a Christmas tree, and one that some birds had taken up residence in.

The terrace was a fire hazard, but my father seemed to escape management's attention to remove the trees, or any entreaties by adjacent neighbors that might have gone, "Ted, don't you think Christmas is over?" My guess is he was just too likeable.

My father was a full-fledged character who seemed unable to part with things. Anything that was used might have some use further down the road; I guess even Christmas threes from three years ago, and certainly last year's tree has not outlived its purpose, right?

He was professional man, an engineer, who just couldn't think anything new was a good thing. He bought used suits from a tailor on 18th Street, Witt and Panetella, adjacent to Pete's Tavern, up the block from the flower shop, and across the street from where he was raised, who altered them to his size. He furnished our home in Flushing with furniture either bought from others, or gleaned from the curb. There were few items that were never pre-owned.

Even when he had a parrot in the apartment it was bought from someone else. But since parrots live to be about 40, my guess is most parrots are pre-owned. He even used the prior owner's name for the parrot, Stash. I used to joke he bought a used Polish parrot. Stash didn't talk, but screeched. He sounded like the Bernard Hermann soundtrack in Psycho when Janet Leigh takes a shower and is no longer needed for anymore scenes because her black and white blood is circling the drain.

We didn't have a car, but if we did, you can certainly believe it would never have been a new one. Once he bought a used car and had it parked in the driveway in the hopes that I would take an interest in it and repair it. It didn't run. I don't know how it got there.

He didn't drive, didn't repair cars, and I was too young, and had no interest. I learned years later when somehow the car disappeared, that his thinking was kicked off by someone at his job that told him he bought a used car for his son to work on. My father thought that was a good idea. He just never told me.

He had trouble throwing out junk mail. I've already written that he piled it unopened in his briefcase and carried it back and forth to Washington with him. It was only when he was finally sick and not working that I emptied his briefcase. He wondered how did I make it so light. 

I wish I had a picture of the three Christmas trees in various stages of fading on his terrace with the pigeons nestled in one.

But then @CoreyKilgannon has provided a nice reminder.

http:/www.onofframp.blogspot.com