A 60s Christmas

 I went down a few rabbit holes while we were sick over the holidays, and found some examples of the Christmas decorations I grew up with.

I don't recall a lot of specialized or homemade tree ornaments. We had these shiny things, some of them globes and some bells, large and small. As a result, plain and simple ornaments can make me nostalgic.

I loved the color wheel! We had a black and white TV at the time, after all. My recollection is that ours had only three colors, green, blue, and red, but I might be wrong. After all, I also remember my very detailed and realistic toy Apollo Moon rocket with a capsule that actually shot into the air--and it turns out it wasn't very detailed or realistic.

(On the subject of toys, I did indeed get a bb gun, and I never shot my eye out.)

We had a green aluminum tree, which was all the rage in the 60s, and it looked just like the one on the left. After Christmas the branches went into paper sleeves, and it was all neatly boxed up. As I recall, my Grandma Nannie had a white one.

We also had the cardboard fireplace. In January one year, quaking with terror while doing a speech in front of the class, I related a tale of the cardboard chimney once falling on me, and got some laughs. It never happened. When my kids were little I bought another one, and it lasted several years.

Santa assembled our main toys for us, and left them in front of the tree. Once I got a model Starship Enterprise that lit up. Another time there was a train waiting, and once my brother and I awoke to find a Hot Wheels track winding its way through the living room. The best was probably when Santa dropped off two bicycles. Mine was a five speed with a banana seat.

Wait--maybe our tree is in a photo somewhere. And maybe you want to know what I looked like back then. I hope so, because it took me some digging to find this:

That's Jeff on the left, Delbert (Dad) on the right, and me in the middle. You want to know something odd? I remember those shirts.

And as usual, find all our books here:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Remember, any time you don't buy a book, my pine allergies break out.

A Sick Sense Of Humor

As mentioned before, I don't usually write about bad stuff unless it can somehow be made funny. Well, funny to me. That's why I haven't said much about Emily and I both being sick through the entire month of December, and now into January.

I mean, it's winter, I'm sick, it's moved into my sinuses--not exactly breaking news. Everybody's sick. People buried for five years have set off local seismographs with their coughing. You may think I'm joking, but remember: Many of those same dead people voted in the last several elections.

I got so sick I was unable to do any writing work for over a week. No editing, no submitting ... a little promoting, but that's the un-fun part, anyway. I started going into withdrawals. I also had to take time off from my full time job, but I had about fifty sick days saved up. In this one case, that's not an exaggeration.

"I could take a sick day, but I prefer to wait until I turn green."

 

At the rate this winter's been going, I'll be down to zero in no time.

It's led to certain things being said around the house that I'd just as soon not have said:

 "I talked to the doctor: She wants us to stop talking to her."

"Why do we still live in a house with one bathroom?"

"Siri, how many cases of Kleenex can fit in a Ford Escape?"

"Dr. Fauci's at the door, he's coming out of retirement just for us."

And my favorite: "My mucus is fluorescent green. Could this be Kryptonite poisoning?"

Hm. It occurs to me that this bug makes us feel exactly like having a hangover, but without any of the fun parts from the night before.

 We still don't know what it is, although Emily got a two for one case of croup. She coughed so much that at first our worried dog hovered over her. Now he curls up in the room furthest away. (He was sick half of last year. Now he's fine, except everyone keeps waking up in the wee hours to make ramen and tea.)

"Good news! They want a few gallons of my blood for a study!"

 

They tested us for flu a. through f., Covid, mono, strep, plague, rabies, mad cow disease, and something called M-Pox, which is apparently transmitted by monkeys, but for some reason we can't say so. The CDC set up a tube passage that ran directly from our back door to their tent. "Have you figured out the problem?" I asked the Doc while he was doing a preliminary check of my wallet.

"Yes, you don't pick up the dog poops enough. It'll take hours to clean up our clean room boots."

"No, I mean about what's wrong with us."

"You're trying to earn enough money writing to retire."

"No, I mean medically."

"Oh. Uh, you have an upper respiratory illness."

"Thanks. I figured that out when I started sounding like Elmer Fudd."

 

"Well ... it's a bad upper respiratory illness."

At that point he prescribed a controlled substance to Emily to quiet her cough, because people who haven't slept for three days have been known to throw kitchen implements at doctors, not that it happened here.

No pharmacy in northeast Indiana had that medicine. Apparently we're not the only people with a cough.

 But it's okay, because after a few weeks of insomnia I was able to sleep right through the coughs. As for me, the crap moved--as usual--into my sinuses. Sinus infections are like my old friends, who stop by twice a year to visit for a month. That, I know how to deal with.

Oh, and don't worry: I'm taking care of Emily. Nothing ever goes wrong with anything I'm trying to fix.

You can find our decontaminated books here:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Remember: Whenever a book doesn't sell, a doctor loses his patience.