We spend so much time living our lives that it is sometimes difficult to recognize the various chapters – where we are, where we’ve been, what we have become. It was just yesterday, so it seems.
Way back then, I was hurrying up my holiday visit with the in-laws so I could drive back to Lawton to cover an early morning radio program. A day at work that had turned into Shades of Ebeneezer. I couldn’t wrangle time off on Christmas Day. Showed up for work in the chilly darkness. The program director unlocked the door and let me inside. I was surprised to see him. Apparently, he was surprised to see me. He asked me what I was doing there on Christmas morning.
The news, I replied. I’m the news director, remember?
He made a face and answered: It’s all Christmas music this morning. There aren’t any newscasts.
Oh.
The program director is in charge of the DJ staff. The news director is in charge of the news personnel. I asked him where all his part-timers were – those folks who desperately want to be on the radio.
He explained that none of them wanted to work Christmas morning, so he had fired them all. I didn’t fire my staff. But there we both were, the two top dogs barking our frustrated selves through the festival of carols at KSWO-AM.
Here I am at the bookshop counter so many years later. I have a radio in the window and music coming out of the speakers, but I’m several chapters removed from that part of my life. Now, my day starts at a more reasonable hour than morning drive radio required. I visit with people face-to-face instead of through a microphone and speakers.
It isn’t all books and bistro, as many of you know. I still do research for clients to help pay my bills. That’s what has me thinking about holidays and history.
Sifting through the records of a family it is easy to get to know them. I’m researching some folks who came to America from Europe in the late 1800s. This kind of investigating – before the internet – used to involve drives to distant courthouses and libraries. Trips to Kentucky and Virginia. North Carolina and Missouri.
It’s all keyboard skiing these days. I can type in a few words and BAM! I’m looking at treasured family portraits of young families from the turn of the century. I look at their faces and into their eyes and I trip through a juxtaposition of time – I’m much older than the people in the photograph, but even the youngest member of the family was born decades before me.
A few more searches reveal census records – that same husband and wife, a decade later. And another decade later. Age 41, Head of Household. Age 51, Head of Household. Age 61, living in Dallas. Age 71, living in a home for the aged.
A picture of the grey marble gravestone.
What chapter are you on in the book of your life?
It is too easy to skim through the pages. A place-marker comes around occasionally. A shiny Christmas morning with bright-eyed toddlers and sparkly wrapping paper. A quiet and long-overdue conversation with an old friend. A gathering of the cousins.
Make a mental note and appreciate the moments as stopping points in the narrative. Dog-ear a page or two. Come back to it later.
It isn’t a race to the finish. There are beautiful words included in the stories of our lives. It’s okay to read them more than once.
Merry Christmas all!
McHuston
Booksellers & Irish Bistro
Rose District
122 South Main St. Broken Arrow OK!