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Show Spirit of Christmas is found in giving the editor's column Holidays have never meant much to me. Even Christmas. I've always given the gifts to those I have to, and forgotten about the rest. Most of the other aspects I saw as a waste of time. I've always seen it as a time to get, and I didn't worry about getting get-ting much. Except for one Christmas. And I spend that one as an observer, rather than a giver or taker. I was a junior in high school, working in my father's grocery store. Our store was nearest the railroad tracks of all those in town, so when the transients drifted into town from time to time, usually on the train, they would come to us first. As far as we were concerned, these unkempt, unshaven men were just bums, picking through the garbage out back in the large cinder block garbage dump, looking look-ing for something to fill stomachs that were always been hungry. I was born too late to appreciate the romance of the road that was common during the Depression, when a lot of folks were "on the bum." Those in our small, conservative farming community had little use for the carefree life of the hobo what we knew, we learned from Red Skelton's Freddie the Freeloader. Free-loader. Tramps weren't people to us, for the most part. Then, about two weeks before Christmas, one of these hobos appeared out behind the store, It never occurred to us how cold it must be to be without shelter in the harsh Bear Lake Valley winter. The week before Christmas was the busiest of the year, with people stocking up for the holiday. We filled up both the Main Street parking park-ing and the back lot parking each night. On one of those nights, the bum was going through the garbage again, in full view of everyone who parked in the rear parking lot. That was a lot of people. A family of eight came in the store, addingto the congestion. The father and mother worked their way through the store, urging the children behind them, as they filled two carts full of groceries. Merle, the gruff, sharp-tongued produce manager, checked them out while I bagged the groceries. There were no extravagances in their purchases. They couldn't afford af-ford them. Pushing two carts filled with six sacks, I helped them out to their station wagon, unloaded the groceries gro-ceries in to the back and slid my way back into the warmth of the store over the ice-covered blacktop. There was a lull in business at that moment, so I looked outside to see if the old bum was still going through the garbage. And I noticed this family watching him along with me. The man and woman were looking look-ing at the man, then back at each other, then at the man again, talking talk-ing all the while. . ., .. ' Then the entire family marched back into the store, grabbed a shopping shop-ping cart, and began the trip through the store all over again. This time they picked up only essentials -- bread and milk, fresh fruit, and similar items. They gathered gath-ered enough to fill one bag of groceries. grocer-ies. Merle checked them out again. I bagged the groceries, and offered to take them out, but the man said no, picked up the bag, and started out the door. His wife and children went to the car, but the man headed straight for the garbage bin, where the hobo was still rumaging for his Christmas dinner in our leavings. The sun had set and the scene was now spotlighted by a lamppost. With a brief word, the man handed the hobo the sack, said goodbye, and walked back to his car. He got inside and drove away. The gift had been given with no fanfare. There was no hope of any return, no assurance of any gratitude, grati-tude, no qualifications whatsoever; because the family and the bum knew they would never see one another again it was the most selfless self-less gift I'd ever observed. We were all left with lumps in our throats, and a new vision for those who don't have any place to call home for Christmas. As the family drove off, Merle said to me, "You know. That dad just gave his kids the best Christmas Christ-mas they could ever have." He'd done that for me, as well. By MARC HADDOCK going through the garbage. From time to time he would come into the store to buy a loaf of bread or quart of milk with some change he had scrounged. I'd check him out, and then, when he was safely out of the store, my cousin and I would get together and laugh at the pathetic figure, makingfunofhisrottingteeth and ragged clothes. |