Storymania - Lights, Camera, Action! by Clark G Curtis

Lights, Camera, Action!
Clark G Curtis

Lights, Camera, Action!

I'm really not sure what age I was when I finally determined, once and for all, that there wasn't a Santa Claus.
All I know is that it must have been the same year that I thought I was a member of the Navy SEALS. And my mission? To make it to my parent's bedroom closet without being caught. Rumor had it that the Christmas stash was lurking in the corner behind the hanging pink plastic garment bag, the movie projector screen box and my dad's bowling ball bag.
  So, not to be outdone by any Chameleon, I slithered my way across 47 boards of the hardwood floor in the bedroom and one (slightly dirty) light blue throw rug, to reach my destination: the closet door. Once there, and checking to see if the coast was clear behind me, I cracked the door, closed my eyes and made my way into what I would soon learn was Santa's workshop.
  Closing your eyes was very important. It seemed to take away from the guilt of what you were about to do. And try as I may, reverse gravity always took hold, and my eyes blinked just long enough in the dark to realize that there would be a Bulldog tank, complete with forward and reverse and a working cannon, under The Christmas Tree come December 25th.
  With mission accomplished, I made my way back out of enemy territory and to the friendly confines of my room. It was there that I could take time to reflect upon what I had just done, feel a little guilty and work on being surprised Christmas morning when I ripped into the big square box with my name on it.
It was also that same Christmas I learned that the gray haired man under The Tree at five in the morning was not Santa Claus, but the gray haired man that spent 40-hours a week at Cummins Engine Company, bowled every Tuesday night, mumbled to himself during every waking hour in preparation for a lodge meeting, was asleep by eight every night in the recliner next to the spring loaded pole lamp and provided for the rest of us heathens. It was my dad.
I was pretty sure that he was the one who dumped off the final load of goods on Christmas morning, but to verify my suspicions, it was necessary to do a little spying on my own. So I waited beneath the end of my brother's elevated bed, which gave me the best view of the living room and the door to my parent�s bedroom. And I wasn't disappointed.
Just like clock work, my dad was up at five, and before long came traipsing into the living room with an armful of presents that would soon be deposited under The Tree. That was also my dad's opportunity to do a little shake, rattle and rolling of his own of the presents that dawned his name. Little did he know that he had been caught by his youngest.
But, despite knowing who the real Santa was at a very early age, it didn't spoil the month of December around the Curtis household. It was a month steeped with annual traditions. Not necessarily all ones that young Clark Curtis would have preferred then, but ones you can fondly look back upon now and appreciate.
Thanksgiving took on double meaning for me. It was a time to see how much food I could place in my body at a single setting. And it also meant that Christmas was only four weeks away and that the butterflies could start churning in my stomach. It wasn't until later in life that I realized the only other thing that could make your stomach churn that much was Luann Harrell. But that's another story for another time.
The actual celebrating began for us the first weekend of December. That's when the annual community Christmas Carol sing was held. This was a big deal in Columbus, Indiana. On the first Sunday of December, choirs from the elementary schools, junior and senior high schools (and an occasional brass choir) would gather at the high school gym and help ring in the Christmas season with all the traditional favorites. Those in the audience would receive copies of the words in case they had forgotten the sixth verse of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."
And I must say, as an actual participant or as a member of the audience, this really was a great way to get you into the Christmas spirit. Particularly if you were Clark Curtis and were being forced to wait another three weeks before you could pop those batteries into your new Bull Dog Tank.
So, according to this five-year olds day timer that I acquired after turning in 20-thousand Bazooka Bubble Gum wrappers, the sing was over and it was time to get The Christmas Tree. Unfortunately around the Curtis home I was the only one who thought it was time to get The Christmas Tree. Nope, according to pop Curtis' schedule that wouldn't occur until two weeks later.
To this day, we attribute this suffrage to guilt over something he did during his childhood. We still aren't sure whether it was baptizing the family cat in the horse trough or painting graffiti on the side of a water tower in northern Michigan. Either way, we were being made to pay for his mischievous ways, no ifs, ands or buts.
Thus began a very long two-week period. All I could do was imagine that we were about to do the annual location swap with the couch and matching chair from Sears & Roebuck, so as to make room for The Christmas Tree in the corner of the living room. Maybe this is why I started snooping at such a young age. There was nothing to look at under The Tree, because there was no Tree to have anything under. Regardless, I survived this ordeal for several years.
But once this two-week period of torture passed, it was time to go Christmas Tree Shopping. And every year that I can remember, that shopping took us to the local orphanage. I thought it was great that my dad wanted to help support them in any way he could. But, when every other father in Columbus wanted to help support the orphanage as well, and did his shopping two or three weeks before Christmas, the pickins were a little slim.
"Gordon," said my mom as we were about to walk out the door, "could you please try and get a little fuller tree than you did last year?"
"Mmmmm," my dad responded, and it was out the door.
I still don't know if he ever heard her or just ignored her. And I guess it didn't really matter. Because he and I both knew down deep that there would be no full trees at the orphanage seven days and counting before Christmas.
Thus, our mission became one of locating the fullest tree with the smallest flat spot. Flat spots were a given. Finding a tree that didn't look like it had been lying on the ground and hadn't been moved since December 1st was the challenge.
The next challenge was getting The Tree in the door and into the corner before ma could see it. Fat chance. This is the same woman that could find our lost Wiffle Ball in the MultiFlora bushes in approximately ten seconds, even though she was nowhere in the vicinity when the foul ball occurred.
"Gordon! You always get a tree with a flat spot," my mother would say. "We're going to have to angle it in the corner so nobody can see it."
Obviously, any and all efforts by my dad or myself to point out that the three good sides seemed much fuller than in years past met upon deaf ears. But once we got that little ordeal over with it, it was time to decorate, or almost.
The first task at hand was to get the kitchen chair, with two levels of fold out steps and take it to the bedroom. Why? Because the decorations were in a small closet up above the closet where The Christmas Presents were stashed. It was very tough being that close to pay dirt and not let on that I knew what lurked behind the pink hanging garment bag. Nevertheless, I managed and started handing down the decorations, which were housed in boxes, trunks and suitcases.
I've often wondered if the Curtis family was the only family in America to store their Christmas decorations in the only set of luggage that they owned. This, of course, meant that every summer when we prepared for our two week vacation to Alpena, Michigan, we had to unpack the ornaments so we could pack our clothes. I'm sure there are others; the topic just hasn't come up yet at group therapy.
But once the decorations were down, it was time for each of us to take on our individual roles. My brother....We're still not sure what he did. Ornaments and other tree paraphernalia were left up to my ma and myself. The testing of the lights, to make sure they had made it through another year, was left up to my dad. And that was a very good thing.
You have to remember that before the days of small and twinkly, lights were just one generation removed from real candles burning on the branches. These were the ones that if one light went out, they all did. So, you would take a good bulb and start interchanging with those in the bad string until you found the culprit. Unless, of course, there happened to be two bad bulbs, which tended to make the entire process null and void. But somehow, my dad, who was able to start controlled burns in our backyard when he used gasoline instead of charcoal lighter on the barbecue, managed to get all lights up and running. Running, of course, being the operative word.
Putting the bulbs on the tree and providing maintenance became my job. You see, once nestled in a sea of pine, it then became my responsibility to try and find the bad bulb. And, God forbid, that while attempting to keep the lacerations on your hands to a minimum, you wake dad while he slept next to The Tree in his favorite LA-Z-BOY (complete with recline and rocking capabilities). But, I'm getting ahead of myself here.
With lights all working, it was then time to get down to business. And I must say proudly that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel received its first coat of paint in less time than it took me to decorate The Tree. When you only have three good sides, with gaps to work with, you have to get creative.
And before any Christmas decorating project could be begin, there, of course, had to be the proper ambiance. And in our case, that included my mother's favorite, Tennessee Ernie Ford and his rendition of Joy to the World. So with stylus tracking and the sweet tones of Tennessee coming through the removable speakers from the Arvin stereo, it was off to work.
First came the stringing of the lights, which presented an interesting dilemma in itself. Not only if one went, they all went, but the strand was also a complete circle. None of the modern conveniences of long open ended strands of small twinklies, with receptacles on one end that allow you to plug in the next strand. Let's just say fitting the circle around the bottom of the tree could, at times, be compared to my mother's Sunday morning ritual of squeezing into her girdle, or contraption with hooks, as I so adeptly named it.
But once all of the lights were squeezed and manipulated into their resting spots for the holiday season, it was time for the ornaments. That job again being relegated to both my mother and myself. The corporate break down on that would be: Clark hangs the bulbs; mother serves as a supervisor and consultant. She lets Clark know each time he has put a bulb in the wrong place. That as she eyes The Tree from across the room knowing that one miscue could result in Norman Rockwell refusing to sketch our living room for the next holiday cover of the Saturday Evening Post. And once the silvers, blues and reds were all hanging from their designated branches, it was time for the garland and tinsel.
Garland around our home was nothing too fancy. We weren't into the live food thing on The Tree. No, our garland would have made Reynolds Aluminum proud. Just a rather skinny piece of twisted aluminum rope. Not real pretty, but it got the point across.
How the draping would proceed, depended on how much tree there was. More tree than garland? Crisscross across the front and sides. More garland than tree? Do complete circles and give the flat side next to the wall some much-needed attention. The key here was to also try and make the ends of each strand meet near the side or back so the neighbors would think that you had a 150-foot piece of garland.
With The Tree nearly complete, it was now time for the tinsel, or ice cycles, as I preferred to call them. That job was totally mine. If it hadn't been for me, I don't think these chopped up strands of aluminum would ever have become a part of The Christmas Tree decor in the Curtis household. As I look back, I truly believe I was being humored. I could just hear them saying, "If we let him hang the tinsel, he'll be content and won't go snooping around in the closet looking for presents."
There was no rhyme or reason to my ice cycle hanging. Just grab a clump and toss it wherever there was an open spot. By the time I got done, The Tree looked as if it had just been through a very rough blizzard, not a nice light snowstorm. But, by the next day, the small birds nests I had created with ice cycles, had been transformed into nice free flowing strands of tinsel. Seems one of the job foreman had been burning the midnight oil. After all, Norman Rockwell might be stopping by any day.
But The Tree was finally up, which meant two things. One was the battle of the lights. The only way I could turn the regular lights off to enjoy The Christmas Tree lights was to wait until my dad fell asleep. The falling asleep part was never a problem; it was just a matter of when.
You see he enjoyed reading the paper and doing crossword puzzles in that LA-Z-BOY which rocked and reclined, right next to The Tree. And, of course, to prevent blindness at an early age, he insisted on having at least two of the three lights on the pole lamp, next to the LA-Z-BOY, on for better cross wording. Thus, the only time to really enjoy the ambiance was to either get up at three in the morning or wait until he fell asleep and immediately head to the pole lamp, quietly click off all lights and reach behind the chair and plug in the extension cord that carried the juice to The Tree.
The second thing that this all meant was that we were only one week away from my dad's annual Cecil B. DeMill production. Just imagine two very large lights that could be used to guide planes in on a rainy night, mounted on each end of a metal bar that had a single hand grip underneath and on top, located directly between the lights, a mounting bolt for the 8mm camera. That's how my dad woke us up every Christmas in Columbus, Indiana, or at least tried.
The week before Christmas seemed to be the longest week of the year. Such an agonizing week filled with anticipation of the big day. But as time has a way of doing, it passed, however slowly it seemed, and Christmas Eve finally arrived. And with it came my first taste of all nighters.
No, this child rarely slept a wink on that night. I didn't care that the real Santa Claus drove a pink and black 1956 Plymouth Belvedere and delivered the goods at five in the morning. I just wanted the goods to be delivered, and the camera to start rolling so I could get up and tear into those presents. But like the week before Christmas, the minutes and seconds between midnight and our annual wake-up call at seven in the morning moved very slowly. To this day I swear that some of the sand got stuck in the hourglass, which slowed things down that much more.
But finally, the first noise of the morning could be heard. As I sat underneath the end of the crisscrossed bunk beds, I watched my dad make his way into the living room with the presents, place them ever so neatly beneath The Tree, shake a couple with his name on them and then turn on The Christmas Tree lights. With that ritual over, I knew it was only two more hours before reveille.
Every year I lay there thinking that maybe, just maybe, pop would get us up earlier than usual. But No! I think it was just his way of maintaining control over the proceedings.
But, without even looking at the clock, I knew when 7:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time had arrived. As I returned to bed and lay under the covers, with the blanket tucked ever so close under my chin, I saw and heard what I had been waiting another year for. The creak of the aging wooden floor and the sudden glow of some additional lights. Pop was in the dining room taking a picture of the December wall calendar. This was his version of a Hollywood director's clipboard at the beginning of the film.
But as quickly as the lights came on, they were off again, which was okay. That meant our room was next. The sound of footsteps across the creaking floor boards beneath the carpet got louder and louder. And then all of a sudden an object appeared in the doorway, the floodlights came on, the film started rolling and Christmas was here.
My dad is no longer with us but if he were I'd like to ask him if he ever knew that except for one or two Christmas mornings, I was already awake and just pretending to be asleep when the lights came on. I'd also like to tell him that even though I protested a bit, it didn't really bother me that this Christmas morning ritual continued through my high school years. After all, Christmas morning wouldn't have been Christmas morning without the...Lights, Camera, Action.