Merry Christmas 2008- Charity Starts at Home

Yet another story from Uncle George, an Old Hippie who don't know just what it is that he's a doin

I was born on November 4, 1948, get your calculator. We lived at 713 Nichols Ave in Monroe Louisiana on the wrong side of the track. The dividing line was the railroad near Diseard Street and we lived on the south side. My momma and daddy worked hard all of their life right up to the last second. In my beginning Daddy was a cop and momma delivered door to door catalogs for Sears and Roebuck. I honestly did not know we were poor.

Every Christmas they would bring out a Sears Catalog. My brother Ricky would circle every toy in the Catalog that he wanted and I would but a box around every toy that I wanted. Poor ole Santa Clause, nearly every toy in the Sears and Roebuck Catalog had a circle or a box. We sure kept him busy eating cookies and milk and climbing back and forth from the sleigh down the chimney delivering toys. I never figured out how he had enough time to visit every house in the world.

When I was 11, I gave Tommy Platte a bloody nose, when he said there was no Santa. Everyone knows that there is a Santa Clause. Just to make sure, I asked Daddy if there was a Santa and he assured me that there was one. So I said if Santa was real, then he would bring me one of them new red shiny Murray Bicycles with the horn.

We woke up at 4 in the morning, before daylight. We were not burning up daylight that day. We woke up, wiped the sand out of our eyes, and went in the living room to inspect the goodies under the Christmas tree. I remember Ricky got a wooden star, a tack hammer and some tacks. For the next 3 years he was nailing tacks into that wooden star. I got a Lionel electric train and the plastic town to go with it. In that little plywood town, there were cowboys and Indians, cars and trucks, a bank and a post office. Matt Dillon was shooting someone in a showdown out there by the OK Coral. We had plenty of loot, but there was no red shiny Murray Bicycle, and in my heart I knew that Tommy Platte was correct, Santa was dead.

I tried to be happy and content with what we got, but I could not hide the disappointment on my face and in my tears. After about an hour, Daddy asked me to go into the kitchen and pour him a cup of coffee. That is when the tears really fell out like rain. I stumbled over that red shiny Murray Bicycle.

I remember my roots. I always wanted me a place out here in the woods with giant white oak trees with those big fat acorns. I am looking out the dining room window now past the tons of white oak leaves that we need to rake at the 3 concrete pink pigs and the ceramic deer out eating by the road. (The difference between rednecks with money and rednecks without money is rednecks with money have ceramic deer in the front yard. Rednecks without money shoot those ceramic deer with the headlight. “We ate him, sure was tuff, had to boil the dat-blamed thing a half a day.”)

I look at what we have now and what we had back then. I am grateful to Jesus and to each and every one of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Only in America… Charity starts at home.

Across the street not too far from the pigs, a family lives in a single wide trailer. All of the kids have been over here playing with Aaron and we have taken them to movies, out to eat, or whatever from the beginning. I think they have 7 children living in that trailer. Last night Dustin, one of the kids, informed me that he had just turned 10 years old this week. He said he did not have a birthday party. There were just too many kids having birthdays and not enough cash. The family works hard all over Louisiana doing commercial painting. I will always remember the look on Dustin’s face and how big his eyes got when I said you are going to have a party. His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. The party is scheduled this Friday at 7 PM at Excalibur in West Monroe. You should come and bring a present.

I am trying to decide what to do for the kids at Christmas. They need a red shiny Murray Bicycle under that tree. There is still time for you to send a donation.

Whitlow Enterprises

1305 Charles Griggs RD

West Monroe LA 71292

Put Christ back into Christmas.

Amen Brothers and Sisters

This is Uncle George signing off