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Show Page 10 THE OGDEN VALLEY NEWS Volume IX Issue V December 15, 2003 The Spit and Image of Christmas A Christmas Memory by Michelle Evans Memories of Christmas, like the aromatic spices that the season promotes, are the pungent richness of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves as they ripen in hot pumpkin pie. Memories that sit as pies cooling on a rack—one little piece of crust temptingly broken off, evidence that the crust and its contents will melt as a creamy succulent bite of pleasureful remembering. I remember my Christmases as being full of love, warmth, and—as I was a child of nine—a little less than divine. My knees told the tale—knobby, littered with scrapes proclaiming the tomboy within; little white hairs on the legs below seemed to stick straight out in defiance of decorum. Skinny legs poked out from under layers of stiff, itchy chiffon and taffeta. Ankles were incongruously surrounded by white socks daintily trimmed by white lace that stuck out horizontally as if in a vain attempt to remove itself as far from the offending tomboy ankle as possible. My feet were imprisoned in white Mary Janes, the strap and side buckle already gouging and tormenting the refined legs of my older sister Jeannie, who sat beside me. How she could sit tightly wrapped in her taffeta and ribbons with her smooth, shaven legs primly drawn to the side, her hands folded in her lap and holding little white gloves was a constant source of irritation and disgust to me. At fourteen, her perfume and shapely body flaunted themselves before my mind, an unending comparison, a rebuke of my miserable gangliness. We were in the back seat of our 1963 blue station wagon, fondly christened “The Blue Whale” for it was the longest, largest vehicle ever made by man. The trip to grandma’s house for a big family meal was a loathsome prospect of an impending eternity in the car, where one could but sit quietly, unable to play tag or climb a tree. My four-year-old sister Patti napped in the space behind us. Her fair hair curled in little pin curls. Her heavy dark lashes were closed over luminous blue eyes. Her blue taffeta dress stuck crisply into the air—a tutu for a dainty ballerina. My mind smoldered. The injustice of having to drive for two whole hours in this condition was intolerable. Grandma would like me in pants and Keds. What was worse was the senseless and forced starvation that was also a part of the scenario. My mouth had just begun to water over the first bite of a large chocolate doughnut covered with little white and pink sprinkles when my mother’s voice had rung sharp and clear, “Michelle, put that down. You’ll spoil your dinner!” How one doughnut could diminish the gnawing emptiness that raged within me was senseless. My eyes gazed a the back of my parents’ heads in front of me. I could see the folds of my dad’s shirt. His plump neck wanted to settle into that collar but was held at bay by his tie. My tiny mother sat in repose beside him thoroughly enjoying a stack of Reader’s Digest magazines. My one solace was Jeremiah, our overweight basset hound. We would be gone too long to leave Jerry in the house, and our yard was unfenced. Grandma’s yard, however, would keep him from getting loose, and thus he was invited. He was doomed to sit on the floor board beneath my feet. At the slightest invitation he would have lunged onto the seat beside me, his long 85-pound body covering half the seat and me. He would have given me a sloppy lick, showered the seat with hair, and decorated the window with nose drool until we would surrender and crack the window open for him. His tail, a deadly weapon, would beat the seat and its luckless inhabitants. His bobsled-sized ears were a perfume of tanned leather and ear wax. He was my kind of dog. A whine from him brought my sister’s nose into a wrinkle of repugnance. “Mother,” Jeannie wailed, “we’ll all smell like dog breath when we get there. Did he have to come?” My mother merely sighed and returned to her reading. Jerry’s deep brown eyes seemed to mirror my misery. His eyes implored me for one little beckon, one little nod, all the permission he would need to plump himself beside me and stick his head out the window. Alas, I dared not. Although the rumors had been fairly substantial at school that Santa was really one’s parents, I dared not create a disturbance within hours of Christmas Eve. It would ruin everything. I averted my eyes and looked forward. Now here was something interesting. I had noticed this habit of my father’s before, but this time it brought a great deal of cogitation to my to my child mind. My father had a habit of producing a bit of a cough, clearing his throat, and then spitting it all out the window. I watched the rhythm in fascination. Cough, clear, unroll, ptui. Cough, clear, unroll, ptui. The most remarkable part was how far this expectoration managed to sail out away from the car as we drove. “How ingenious,” I thought. “How cleaver.” With rapture I pictured myself having this same ability. Imagine the accolades of my friends at school as I demonstrated this new-found skill. I immediately began to swoosh my tongue around in my mouth working up a frenzy so that I’d have a goodly amount of saliva for the job. Our defroster wasn’t working very well, and I heard my father’s command to unroll my window for a few minutes so that the front windshield would defog. “We’ll turn up the heater so you won’t get cold girls,” he said as he unrolled his window too. The angelic face of Patti bobby up from behind. Her dark lashes fluttered as she murmured. “Are we almost there, daddy?” His voice had awakened her. He replied, “Oh, a half hour or so.” The scene was perfect. The windows were down. My mouth was full. Time would be up soon. I leaned over to my window. Suddenly, the thought went through my mind,” I wonder if it works well for him because of the window by the driver’s seat.” I had done a little spitting in my time, but never with such precise accuracy as it seemed that my father could perform. Maybe that window was the key. I could just lean forward a little further, use his window, and PTUI! A veritable reservoir burst from my lips. I was unaware of the scientific principle that had just been demonstrated behind me. I had leaned forward out of my father’s window, that which I had expelled had instantly been carried in the open window behind me—right into Patti’s sleepy face. There was a high-pitched scream. The car swerved. No herald or bugler could have sounded a better trump for a hound dog. Jerry lunged up to the seat. The air was a choke of dog hair, slobber from man and beast, and pieces of taffeta. With a gasp and a wretched shriek, Jeannie croaked out my name—incriminating me instantly. The car stopped violently, throwing Jerry into the back with Patti, who now wet and dripping, was a flypaper waiting to be plastered with dog hair. When he dislodged himself and bounded for the open window the ruined mess of dress and hair and big blue eyes sat stupefied. My father’s ashen face jerked around, only to see me wide-eyed in innocent oblivion that what goes out a front window will go back into an open rear window just behind it. “Merry Christmas,” I thought later as we started up again cleaned and sanitized by a year’s worth of Kentucky Fried Chicken finger-cleaning packets that my mother kept in the glove compartment. “Grandma’s goose isn’t the only one cooked tonight.” PLANNING cont. from page 1 LOCATED IN THE VALLEY IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE Dick Manley Realtor / Member of Eden Planning Committee 391-1800 Paul Judd 5460 E 2200 N Eden Utah Real Estate Done Right! Call (801) 745-6000 745-6000 Office 814-5667 Cell Manager/ Broker Sales Master/GRI Chairman OVBA 2003 CLOSED SALES VOLUME UP 83% OVER 2002 We need homes & land to sale call 745-6000. 100 80 60 Susan Hansen Realtor 710-3833 Wendy Anderson Realtor 430-7064 Nicole Kester 40 Realtor 745-0290 Connected to the Community The Valley is our Business 20 10 0 2003 CLOSED SALES Up 83% of the county. Each township requires county staff to facilitate planning meetings held on a monthly basis. Townships currently organized within the county are East Huntsville, Liberty/Nordic, Weber County, West Weber, Reese, and Warren. The hearing has been scheduled for January 13, at 6:00 p.m. in the Weber County Commission Chambers, 2380 Washington Blvd., Ogden. UDOT Contacted Regarding Safety Issues on Highway 158 Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) officials have been contacted regarding safety concerns on Highway 158 around Pineview Reservoir after a fatal accident in November of this year. Members of the community are asking that guardrails or barricades be placed in critical areas along the highway to prevent further incidents of vehicles entering Pineview Reservoir after straying off of the highway’s edge. Increased traffic, severe weather conditions, and out of area commuter traffic unfamiliar with area road and driving conditions are increasing the need for improved transportation infrastructure. UDOT spokesman Andy Neff states that the northern office in Ogden will receive an incident report regarding the accident, probably within the last week of December, and will then decide whether or not to pursue an Operational Safety Review (OSR). The review would be the first step UDOT would take in determining whether to make improvements to the roadway. If pursued, UDOT would review the area’s accident history, current design standards, the cause of the accident, and if any safety improvements could be made to prevent future accidents. Weber County Commissioners have been asked to endorse efforts to make improvements along the highway. UDOT officials can be reached by calling 620-1640. |