By Bobby Syncope La Douche’
Many of the famous Christmas stories are fiction. A Christmas Carol, The Gift of the Maji, and things like A Christmas Story. Stories of conviction and sacrifice for the good of others. We watch them time and again because it is rich in good endings and good spirit. It may even provoke a kind act or a simple Merry Christmas to someone.
My story has never been told. Even the brothers involved never mention it. While this isn’t a movie it could be a short story such as this. It is loaded with all the attributes of an infectious Christmas tale. The three actors in this true, yes true story, are three brothers. My brothers. The oldest brother was twelve at the time and let’s call him Erv. The middle brother was me, your life coach, Bobby, and I was eleven, and the youngest was our brother, let’s call him Mark, who was nine. A relative fetus of the group. Here we go.
I’m going to put my memory to test and some things are vague but have purpose. In 1966 Milwaukee the main big box store was Sears. They had pretty much everything including stoves and refrigerators. Our store was located on Mitchell St. It was so popular that in the back of the store the parking was directed by a guy on a loud speaker standing on a loft two stories up. Shoppers would leave and park under the direction of the parking dude. My mom went to Mitchell St quite a bit not only for Sears but for a multitude of other stores. She was a seamstress and constantly bought material and patterns at Goldmans to work on at home. The best thing for us kids at Goldmans was the small food and drink counter in the store where you could sit at the spinning bar stools and drink a malt while mom was viewing the fabrics on the second floor. I remember a Gimbels store on this street as well. That was 1966. Let’s get back on track. Sometime in late summer, Erv, Mark and I went with mom to Sears. During this shopping venture my mom was looking at chandeliers for the dining room and she seemed fixated about this one particular fixture. It was a wagon wheel type of thing with maybe 5 lanterns on the wheel where the lights were held. She even talked with a salesman about it. It was $54.99. In our household with seven of us it was a luxury to think about buying such a thing. In 1966, $54.99 might as well have been a million. However, the brothers three did take notice of her interest in this, her most favorite chandelier. Shortly after getting home us guys met to talk. Who said what or when is long forgotten but we knew we wanted to get the light fixture for mom. It was a very excellent thought. There was a massive problem with this plan. None of us had income. There was no allowance in these times and school was coming soon. The lightning bolt struck us. We each got $1.10 each week for lunch tickets at school. At the start of the school year, we found a spot to store the lunch ticket money where mom wouldn’t find it. In a sock in the top drawer of a dresser in bedroom two. What idiots. This is where divine intervention came in. For some blessed reason she never found the stash of cash. In reality it would have been easier to hide a brick of fentanyl from the FBI. All three of us would incessantly count the money every day to see if our hunger would make the amount grow. It was pretty tough to not eat lunch for days on end. I didn’t think of it while I was living it, but now as a beaten down geezer, I remember that no nun or lay person asked any of us why we didn’t have lunch for 18 weeks. The brothers three stuck it out and gathered about $59.00. This would get us the chandelier with tax. Our next problem was logistical. How would we get to Sears, get the fixture, and get it back home without being caught?
I am pretty sure Erv figured that mom would likely have to go to Sears just before Christmas. There were only a few days to see if this would happen. Out of the blue (more divine aid), my mom had to go to Sears one night. She was surprised that the brothers three all wanted to go. What a stroke of luck. Erv managed to get the cash and get into the car without incident. Off we went. Oh, Oh! How do we buy the chandelier and get it in the trunk without Inspector MaryAnn exposing the plan. Help came when mom went to a different department and we asked if we could go look at the bikes. Success. Off we ran to the lightning department and after a bit of stress we had the item. Holy man that box was a lot bigger than the fixture hanging on the ceiling. Next item for the Impossible Missions Force was to get this monstrosity to the car. Erv found my mom in another part of the store and asked if he could have the keys so he could go back to the car and get something in there. I have no idea what he told her. Success again. The box barely fit in the trunk. Last problem was not allowing mom to put anything in the trunk after shopping. We engaged my mother while she was walking down the final exit aisle with her two packages. “Let us hold them for you mom” and we grabbed them away. No chance these packages would get to the trunk while they were in our possession. Door was unlocked and we jumped into the back seat to block any trunk use. Man, oh man we did it. We got home and mom had no reason to open the trunk.
At some point later that night we went out and retrieved the fixture from the trunk. Our garage was separate from the house so that was a snap. One obstacle that we couldn’t handle was wrapping this Olympic size box. Never thought about the required paper and tape and more importantly we didn’t have the skills. You couldn’t really tell what was in the box if you tipped it on the right side. Our plan was complete.
The rest is blurry. My mom and dad were stunned by the gift of this stature. When they found out how we had saved the money my mom was horrified that we didn’t eat for all these weeks. My dad who was almost starved to death as a POW in Japan just smiled. In 2022, the Department of Social Services would have been knocking on the door.
With our unity of purpose, the brothers three did a nice thing, perhaps a great thing. Just as good as anything. Its was time to tell this story.
Bobby Syncope La Douche’