Holidays

 

HOLIDAYS

My early memories of Christmas were described in A Roanoke Winter, and so I will not repeat that description here. However, there remain four other holidays - Halloween, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, and Easter - of which I have vivid memories.

Halloween

I will readily admit that, in reminiscing about the past, I have a tendency to wear rose-colored glasses - but not too deeply colored. In some respects life in the thirties and forties was better that it is now; in some respects it was worse; and in still other ways it was just different. When it comes to Halloween, I believe that all of my contemporaries would agree that the holiday celebration is much nicer today - both for children and adults. As luck would have it, "trick-or-treat" - the idea of bribing children not to play tricks by offering them goodies - reached our “neck of the woods” just as I reached my teen years and outgrew Halloween trickery. The "treat" was missing from "trick-or-treat". We would just dress up in our homemade costumes and roam the neighborhood after dark, playing tricks.

The ideal Halloween trick was one that caused an inconvenience without actually breaking anything or causing any permanent damage. The most common tricks were tipping over garbage cans and soaping windows with a bar of Ivory soap. Our parents were spared, as well as those of our friends. As a matter of fact, our tricks were pretty well confined to a "black list" of adults for whom we held some kind of grudge - usually because they had yelled at us about something.

The best part of Halloween was dressing up in our costumes. I tried being the Green Hornet once, but the mask kept slipping down over my eyes until, in exasperation, I tore it off. Then, in future years, I avoided masks altogether. My favorite role was a pirate, because it involved nothing more than wearing a red bandanna on my head, and a mustache painted on with the blackened end of a burnt match. The bandanna was easy to come by, because in those days nearly every workman carried one as a "sweat cloth"; and my father had several.

The second best thing about Halloween were the parties. There was always one at school and often one at some one's home a day or two before Halloween. I don't remember much about the school parties, other than making construction paper jack-o'-lanterns, drinking Kool- Ade, and eating candy corn. It was more fun when someone invited us to his home for a party. Then we would bob for apples in a washtub, sip cider, and munch on homemade ginger snaps. Sometimes, if the parents weren't looking, we would play "spin the bottle".

Mom observed Halloween by carving a pumpkin shell to make a genuine jack-o'-lantern. Then she would make pies from the pumpkin pulp. Unfortunately, at that time, I didn't like pumpkin pie. That's an indication of just how immature I was!

I could report that my father, like the other adults in the neighborhood, was above the mischief of Halloween - but that wouldn't exactly be the truth. One year, on the morning after Halloween, I entered the kitchen as my parents were both staring at some event taking place in the back yard of one of our neighbors. I looked out the window in the back door to see what they found so fascinating, but all I saw was the neighbor walking toward his house with a scowl on his face. I didn't understand why my parents thought that was so amusing, until Mom explained that someone had smeared grease (or something worse) on the latch of his fence gate, and now he was returning to the house to wash it off. Later that day, after Pop had left for work, Mom let it slip that he was the culprit.

Once he really got into the spirit of the holiday and told me about some of the Halloween tricks that were popular in his youth. The boys didn't wear costumes in those days, but they did carry Halloween prankishness well into their teen years, often with elaborate projects. He told about one farmer who awoke on the morning after Halloween to find that his hay wagon had been elevated onto the roof of his barn.

Pop didn't admit to being a party to that particular trick, but he did describe one practical joke that he and his friends regularly pulled on Halloween. At that time most of the houses were made of clapboard - horizontal planks that overlapped, somewhat like shingles. The boys would tie a nail to a long string that had been thoroughly coated with beeswax. Under cover of darkness they would insert the nail tightly between the two lowest clapboards and carry the other end of the string to a hiding place. When they held the string taut and rubbed it with a piece of metal, a strange noise would be heard inside the house - something like a loud gnawing sound, as I understood it. The occupant of the house would rush outside to find out what was attacking the house. But the boys would simply drop the string, which was invisible in the darkness. When the house dweller satisfied himself that no animal was near the house and returned to the interior, they would wait a few moments and then begin the "gnawing" again.

I experimented with that trick a little bit myself, but I was doing something wrong, because I never mastered it. I considered asking Pop to demonstrate it for me, but I was afraid that would violate the "parent-child protocol" that forbade him from overtly encouraging me to play pranks.

As I said earlier, Halloween is a much nicer holiday now - for both parents and children. We had some fun with our little pranks, but we would gladly have exchanged our bag of tricks for a bag of candy.

Thanksgiving

My memory of childhood Thanksgiving holidays has faded considerably. As an adult, I came to appreciate Thanksgiving with its warm family get-togethers and my mother's unsurpassed cooking; but as a child I was not impressed by a big meal because I ate at every opportunity anyway, with little awareness of the difference between a special meal and an everyday meal.

Sometimes, on Thanksgiving we would be honored by a visit from a great uncle or a great grandparent, but I was too young to participate in those social interactions and, consequently, those faces and personalities quickly dissolved into the deliquescent past. I do remember that one Thanksgiving while we were still living at "Maw" Wiley's boarding house, it actually snowed on Thanksgiving. It was a real snow, too - one that stuck on the streets - not just a few flurries to tease us.

In those days an annual Thanksgiving Day event was the VPI - VMI football game, which was traditionally played at Roanoke Stadium. At that time those two schools were more similar in size and enrollments, and sentiment in Roanoke was pretty well evenly divided between them. Television and professional football did not yet exist, but enthusiasm for collegiate sports ran high, and a large proportion of the population of Roanoke seemed to have an emotional investment in this one game that belonged to our city. Consequently, the stadium was usually filled to the brim. Even though our house was a good two miles from the stadium, we could hear the roar of the crowd at the more exciting moments.

Thanksgiving Day always began with our rising well before daybreak to eat a hasty breakfast and dress for the sunrise service at the church. It wasn't actually at sunrise, but it was quite early, and thankfully fairly brief. I don't recall much about those services except that it seemed to be strange attending church on a non-Sunday, and we always sang "We Gather Together to Ask the Lord's Blessing" and "Come, Ye Thankful People Come".

The walk home in the frosty morning air would whet my appetite, but it would be hours before the meal was ready - hours in which my appetite was whetted even more by vigorous play and the variety of aromas that wafted outward from the kitchen.

                                                                    HOLIDAYS

Valentine's Day

Although Halloween in the thirties was not the big event for children that it is today, Valentine's Day was, in some ways, an even bigger holiday than it is now. We could purchase a box of some twenty or so small valentines for about a dollar, in anticipation of the holiday, but the tab ran higher for a special valentine or two for those recipients that we wanted to impress.

Our teacher used the occasion to teach us arts and crafts. We learned to make a valentine by folding a sheet of red construction paper down the middle and then cutting the folded sheet into a semi-heart. Then, when unfolded, it became a perfectly symmetric heart that could be decorated with drawn pictures, cut-outs, or an appropriate message.

On or near February 14, each class would have a party, which usually featured Kool-Aid and the tiny candy hearts that feature brief messages, like "Be Mine", or "You're Sweet", or "Don't Say No". Then we would exchange valentines. I think "exchange" is the right word, because we didn't just present a valentine to a "special" individual or two. It was considered proper etiquette for each boy to present a valentine to each girl, and vice versa - although a number of the children refused to adhere to this protocol.

All day long on February 14, we looked forward to the fun of exchanging valentines in the neighborhood that evening after dark. This exchange was accomplished via a ritual that minimized the embarrassment and maximized the fun. To appreciate this ritual fully, you must first understand that every house had a front porch. In fact, a porch was a necessity in those days before home air conditioning was a reality.

Now if I wanted to deliver a valentine to, say Nancy, I would tiptoe onto her porch under cover of darkness, lay the valentine on the floor directly in front of the door, tiptoe back to the edge of the porch, stomp loudly two or three times, and then scurry away to hide at a distance and watch the ensuing action. Soon the porch light would flash on, someone would open the door, find the valentine, and exclaim, "Oh, it's for Nancy!". (Nancy herself was probably out delivering her own valentines.)

These valentines were usually left without a covering envelope in order to present a maximum effect when first seen in the glare of the porch light. A few of the older children took advantage of the occasion to craft their own homemade valentines, which were often both artistic and impressively elaborate. The procedure usually began with a large heart cut from red construction paper. Then a slightly smaller heart was made from a paper lace doily, and a heart-shaped section was cut from the center of it. When the doily heart was pasted onto the red heart, a blank red heart shaped region remained in the center. Then some appropriate picture - like a cupid or twin hearts with an arrow through them - was cut carefully from a magazine or an old valentine, and pasted into the blank space. Some of these creations were even fancier, with three or more concentric hearts of various colors and textures.

The girls seemed to enjoy this craft as a kind of artistic fulfillment, but the boys had something entirely different in mind. I myself was once the victim of their valentine prank. I had returned home after delivering my valentines and was examining my own modest receipts when I heard the telltale stomp on the porch. When I switched on the light and stepped onto the porch, I saw a valentine far larger and more beautiful than any of the others that I had received. I was thrilled that anyone would think so much of me as to present me with such a work of art. When I bent over to pick it up, it suddenly moved, then accelerated, and vanished underneath the railing at the end of the porch! At that instant loud giggling erupted behind the railing, and then several figures disappeared into the darkness. However, it only took a few minutes for me to catch up with them and tag along to enjoy the joke on the next victim.

Easter

After Christmas, my favorite holiday was Easter. The reasons were simple, childish and entirely selfish: I got presents on Christmas, and I got candy on Easter. On Easter morning my basket was carefully hidden, and I was not permitted to hunt for it until after I had eaten a reasonable breakfast. The basket usually featured a centerpiece of a hollow chocolate rabbit, a small chocolate egg or chicken, some marshmallow eggs, and lots of jellybeans - all in a setting of green cellophane "grass". Mom tried to monitor my consumption of these sweets so that I wouldn't get sick or ruin my appetite for regular meals.

Our observance of the holiday actually began before Easter Sunday. On Saturday Mom would hard boil about three dozen eggs. Of these about a dozen were set aside for Betty and me to dye, while the rest were peeled - some to be "pickled" in beet juice and vinegar, and the remainder to be devilled for the big Easter meal. Dyeing eggs for the first time was an experience both exciting and educational. The sharp odor of acetic acid permeated the kitchen as Mom prepared several cups with the right combination of hot water, vinegar, and food dye. As I recall, we had red, blue, yellow, and green coloring.

Betty dyed her first egg blue, and I dyed one red - or rather, a kind of deep pink. Then Betty began to "get fancy". She held an egg so that half of it was submerged in the blue cup, and then dyed the other half yellow. I followed suit with the red and green dye. Next, she tinted an egg briefly in the blue cup, then transferred it to the red cup to produce a lovely lavendar egg. Not to be outdone I soaked my egg in all four of the cups. The result was a dull, rather sickeningly gray egg - an egg so embarrassingly ugly that Mom quickly decided that we would just peel it and devil it. She taught us how to decorate an egg by drawing a design on it with a small candle or paraffin stick. The part that was coated with paraffin would be shielded from the dye when the egg was dipped, and so would show up as a white design on the colored egg.

On Easter morning, Mom seemed to accomplish the impossible. She prepared breakfast and then began work on the big dinner meal - setting homemade yeast rolls in a warm place to rise, chopping celery, onions, pickles, and a hardboiled egg for potato salad, placing the pineapple glazed ham in the oven at the proper temperature, and taking care of a hundred other details. Then she made sure that I was properly washed and dressed for Sunday School before beginning her own cosmetic preparations.

After Sunday School came the church service, which on Easter included special rituals, like communion and baptism, and consequently would invariably run well past the noon hour - to Pop's great frustration and my own considerable discomfort. When we were finally released, we rushed home and Mom headed for the kitchen to check on the ham and other crucial matters - even before removing her hat.

I was strictly admonished to stay away from the candy in my Easter basket until after the meal. Sometimes we had an Easter egg hunt, and this time between church and dinner was the ideal time for it because it distracted my mind from thoughts of food. One Easter Betty hid the eggs that we had decorated in the backyard. This setting was a perfect picture of Spring, with some tulips, irises, and other early flowers blooming in the garden and the foliage of the later flowers starting to grow and thicken. The deep green lawn had not yet seen its first mowing, and consequently appeared very irregular, with lush clumps of tall grass punctuating the larger areas of shorter grass.

I succeeded in finding most of the eggs hidden among the flowers and foliage, behind clay pots, or under hand tools, but one egg remained outstanding and defied my most meticulous searching. Finally, Betty began giving me hints - telling me when I was getting "warmer" or "colder" - until I finally found it: a green egg nestled in a patch of tall grass right in the middle of the lawn.

When Mom was preparing a "big" meal, whether it was for Easter, Thanksgiving, or just the Sunday dinner, the kitchen had a definite attraction, with its savory mixture of food aromas; and it was especially appealing on cool days when the cozy warmth generated by the stove and the steaming delicacies drew me like a magnet. Mom never asked for my help in the kitchen. She would just as soon have handled everything by herself. As I have already mentioned, she had an amazing ability to plan a meal and begin preparing it days ahead of time, mentally scheduling each task in such a way that when the feast time arrived, the meat was done to perfection, the rolls were just coming out of the oven, the vegetables were steaming, the salads were fresh, and an assortment of desserts lay stashed away in cupboards and the refrigerator. She did not make notes or memos to herself, but she kept her meal agenda in one corner of her mind while she took care of numerous other tasks, which might include cleaning the house, entertaining guests, and preparing to teach a Sunday School class. She maintained this ability all her life, with no apparent decline as she grew older.

It was strictly by my own request that she permitted me to help in the kitchen. The first assignment that I remember was to turn the handle on the meat grinder, while she fed in chunks of cheese and strips of pimiento to make pimiento cheese. As I grew older I was entrusted with the task of helping prepare the salad trays; peeling cucumbers and washing carrots, celery and tomatoes; then slicing them according to her specifications. Later, I graduated to peeling boiled eggs and helping to devil them, and to mixing the ingredients for potato salad - but always under her supervision.

I continued this practice of helping in the kitchen into adulthood, and I looked forward to it whenever I planned a trip home. Then, it wasn't just the delectable aromas and cozy atmosphere that attracted me to the kitchen. It was there, with the two of us alone, that I unburdened myself to her, and revealed the thoughts, worries, and interests that I dared not entrust to anyone else. And I always found a sympathetic ear and sound advice.

Later, Betty would arrive with her family; and she, too, would come into the kitchen to help. I took advantage of those times to catch up on her family happenings and her own thoughts. We had been so different from each other and far apart throughout our childhood that now I treasured those brief conversations with her - warm, golden moments locked in my memory forever.

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