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Anything Can Happen
Trying to Outrun the Trauma of Christmas
You’d Better Watch Out! They say it’s a war on North American Christmas, but I think this holiday has needed pruning for a long time.
Singing the simple tune Oh Tannenbaum on December 24 has evolved into what we have nowadays. An airbag-style inflation of the hype to buy. Most know this. Commercial Christmas ambushes me the day Trick-Or-Treaters leave my porch guarded by one lonely pumpkin, sagging with a moldy, but still toothy grin. I never look forward to the next season.
The Christmases I experience, each one almost one too painful to acknowledge, is flavored with kindergarten perplexity. Why did Santa enter the bedroom at the Christmas party Mom and Dad drove us to? The cave people were in the living room, laughing over their gift exchange gags traded in competitive one-ups-manship. A butt signaler for the long crawl ways, strap-on, light-up, left/right directional. Ha-ha. Floating candles, to enjoy while splashing up the Candlelight River in Mammoth Cave’s Flint Ridge system. Ho, ho!! Such funny caving friends. My dad was one of the founders of Cave Research Foundation. He was a charmer.
My brother and I were raised as spelunkers too. I could have used those floating candles years later when I went inner tubing in wet suits up the Echo River as we looked for…
