Once upon a time Christmas was a simple holiday. The earliest Christian churches down played it because they felt the birth of Jesus was nowhere near as important as his death and resurrection. The Puritans of Boston Colony practically outlawed any celebration of Christmas other than church service, which every citizen was required to attend or they could be fined up to two schillings (which was a lot of money back then). It makes you wonder why there are no Puritans today.
So here is Christmas, a huge fat pageant of exuberance and excess, loaded up with pagan symbolism and it's represents for some the front lines of the culture wars over the soul of America. For the overly faithful it has become the height of rudeness to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas -as though there is only one holiday in December. My friend Harrison has come up with several retorts for the militant wing of the Jesus fan club, which are all out of spirit with "peace on Earth, good will towards men". As Harrison would say it's becoming Christmas uber alles.
Harrison is an assumed name, he prefers I don't use his real one. Twenty years ago when my wife and I were selecting baby names, as a joke I came up with Harrison Mackenzie James, something to honor my wife's Canadian heritage. Yes my wife is an ethnic Canadian but she doesn't like to draw attention to that fact. So neither of our sons got stuck with that name but I saved it for a character in a half finished story. Harrison Mackenzie Jones -Hero of the Northwest Territories, I haven't gotten too far with the plot. It's difficult writing adventure stories where every conflict is resolved with a hardy handshake (the way real Canadians do, even the ones who play hockey end the game with a handshake -right eh?).
Harrison has read my writings and has latched on to the name. He is also excellent wingman and partner in crime. Like Cheap John, Tom the collector of everything, Slow Paul, Shady Ric, Keith aka Jabba the Hut and several other denizens of my (guy) life; Harrison is in that club of friends my wife neither approves or wants to know too much about. Yesterday I was out on the quest to find the perfect gift for one of my nieces. She is in love with Thomas the Train and wants Cranky. The last week I failed to find Cranky because I thought he was another steam engine with an irritable attitude -instead he a happy little crane. So over breakfast I declare "today I'm getting Cranky" and my wife replied "good for you".
I picked up Harrison on the way to mall. Harrison was grateful because he still had some Christmas shopping to do and he was "in between" checks and his car is in the shop. On the drive down we're soon singing Christmas songs, Harrison does spot on impersonation of Tom Waits and sings "Santa has been drinking". Next we mix and match Christmas songs until we come up with "Yoko got run over by a reindeer". While walking across the parking lot Harrison in his loud classically trained voice belts out:
"It's coming on Christmas
they're cutting down trees
they're putting up reindeer
and singing songs of joy and peace
wish I had a river -just to see if Joni Mitchel could swim"
A couple of fellow shoppers clap and one person shouts back at us about how much he hates that song.
The quest for Cranky didn't turn out to be an epic adventure. It's easier to find things when you know what you're looking for. Cranky was waiting for me in the third department store I went to. Harrison shopped with the precision of a cruise missile and in short time finished up everything he needed to do. With our missions completed we went to the food court for a cup of coffee.
Harrison for a moment was absorbed in his thoughts looked over to me and said "I could have been somebody".
I had known Harrison back from my days in South Jersey. He was a radio DJ on a popular college station. As a gig it didn't pay anything but on the air Harrison was minor cult of personality. And here we are now three decades later. I'm embedded into middle-class suburbia and Harrison, though only a couple of paychecks away from destitution, was an indomitable spirit with a personal philosophy of confronting the world and not hiding from it.
Harrison assured me he never told anyone this story. He was doing his Saturday afternoon show and broke away from the usual alternative rock, pop and schlock; and played few selections of African folk music. Several new records came in (yes it was the days of vinyl) that no one else was willing to touch them because they didn't recognize any of the artists or the liner notes weren't in English. The music was exceptionally good.
Normally that part of the college was empty on the weekends so it was a surprise when this skinny kid comes by. He's a student and works on the janitorial staff, that's why he's in the building on a Saturday and the kid is totally blown away with the music. This kid isn't some new age world music debutante, he's actually from African. He knows the music and can translate the lyrics. His name is Lyle.
Afterwards Lyle would visit every other Saturday. He was friendly guy, soft spoken and polite. He eventually began to talk about his home in Africa and that his father was an Assistant Secretary to the Department of the Interior in Zimbabwe. Lyle was rather dismayed that the average college student was only concerned with getting drunk or laid. He had taken a liking to Harrison, because Harrison at least knew where Zimbabwe was and how the country got its name.
Then one day Lyle asked Harrison "would you like to meet my father?" He gave Harrison an invitation to Christmas dinner in New York City.
Harrison broke from his story for a moment, looked down in his coffee. "It was either 85 or 86, it snowed that winter. You know Lyle thought I'd be great working for the government of Zimbabwe. That's why he wanted to introduce me to his dad."
Harrison described that perfect winter's day in the city. It snowed big white fluffy flakes that covered everything and made the city look bright and clean. It was like a movie but better. The invitation only had an address but that address was to the very exclusive Stuyvesant Club. One of those enclaves of the privileged, a place that doesn't advertise -either you belong there or you don't. The doorman verifies your invitation and then you're whisked up thirty or forty stories up to what looks like a country club in Connecticut except for the view of skyscrapers out the windows.
"Best beef dinner I ever had" Harrison said in a voice that sounded like a daydreaming child. Harrison returned to his story. He talked to Lyle's father, a warm but formal man, the product of an English boarding education. There was a steady flow of pleasant conversation, it was the diplomatic kabuki of powerful people being nice to each other. After a couple of drinks they sat down to dinner with twenty other folks from the Zimbabwean Embassy. The one odd thing were the place setting, the dinner plates with a bright polished metallic finish that looked like little UFOs dipped in liquid mercury.
After dinner, one man at the end of the table dominated the conversation. A Sir Richard Blackthorne, one of those old colonial carryovers from when Zimbabwe was ruled by an all white government as Rhodesia. According to Harrison, Blackthorne was one of those characters would have fit perfectly into the royal family or the what the average person would identify as a condescending twit. Blackthorne began to talk about the dinner plates. Zimbabwe had just discovered huge deposits of Chromium ore in its western hills. The dinner plates were so silvery and shinny because they were plated in chrome. Blackthorne continued on how chrome was superior to any other metal plates -better than silver and certainly better than gold.
Harrison looked directly at me. "You know where I went wrong? I let Sir Dick get under my skin. If I had just sat there and only pretended to listen... things could have been different. But no I huffed and said loud enough for everyone to hear me - what do think these dinner plates are going to cost?"
The table of guests went silent. Then Blackthorne began to mock Harrison as being another cheap America who can only see the price but never understand the value. That chrome dinner plates are worth the price because they're meant to last a lifetime.
Harrison started to act out that past conversation between him and Blackthorne.
I asked Sir Dick "Is this what the world really needed another over priced luxury item? Chrome is better than gold for dinner plates -like who cares?"
In a accent more appropriate for a Monty Python skit Harrison went into Blackthorne's explanation about how gold stands up to almost anything but not everything. How gold tarnishes when it comes in contact with eggs. And what was part of the dinner that night? Asparagus in hollandaise sauce! Hollendaise sauce has eggs in it! The hollendaise sauce would have tarnished the gold but never the chrome!
Harrison took a sip of his coffee. "That's when I looked Blackthorne right in the eye and said -oh you mean there's no plate like chrome for the hollandaise?"
"Two guys came and escorted out, that could have been the best job I every had" Harrison finished his coffee, smiled and wished me Merry Christmas.
And I don't know if that whole story is bullshit, or partly true, or as improbable as it sounds the complete and honest truth. Harrison is capable of all three possibilities and like any other Christmas story who knows what the truth really is -it depends on what you want to believe.
Oh, this morning Harrison sent me the link for this video. Merry Christmas.
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