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Pastimes : NNBM - SI Branch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: altair19 who wrote (38137)	12/7/2004 8:36:05 AM
From: Crocodile	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 104157

Croc made me think after I read his Christmas story. How about each of us write a werd picture about Christmas when we were growing up...and we can hang the stories on the cyber tree at the NNBM Bar...no pressure..not mandatory..just if you feel like it. Sounds like a super idea. Can I write a few more to hang on that cyber tree? I've got a number of others. In fact, here's one from early Croc-hood. One of my earliest memories of Christmas is of putting a glass of milk and a cookie on the hearth of our fireplace -- in case Mr. Claus took a hungry spell in the midst of delivering the goods. A little while later, my Dad called me to come and watch Santa's sleigh on television. Boy, did it ever look real to me! Remember, this was in the days of black and white tv, when we only had one tv channel in our area. Somehow, they managed to pull together some footage of this tinsel-covered sleigh and reindeer floating across the screen in front of some curtains. Never mind that the scale was all wrong, and that the sleigh jerked from side to side (no doubt wobbling on the end of a chunk of coat hanger), and that the curtains were the same ones used on The Uncle Chichamus puppet show. To me, it was all very real and exciting. I was practically sick with excitement. I went to bed soon after, but then excitement got the better of me and I crept back out to the living room and slid underneath the sofa where I could get a good view of the fireplace and the Christmas tree. The Christmas tree lights were still on (people didn't seem to worry so much about burning their houses down back then). I still have a very vivid memory of how Christmas tree lights look when glowing in the darkness overtop of a little mound of wrapped presents. Rather amazingly, I awoke the next morning, only to find myself back in bed (How the heck did that happen!!). I ran to the living room and sure enough, Santa had been and gone -- the glass of milk was almost empty and there was about a third of an uneaten cookie on the plate by the fireplace. A few new presents were under the tree, including a wonderful wooden rocking horse which my Dad made and my Mom painted (I still have a photo of it). I'm not quite sure what part Santa Claus had in the delivery of it as there's no way it would have fit down the chimney. Anyhow, there's the second instalment from the croc's christmas memories file.

To: altair19 who wrote (38137)	12/7/2004 8:57:20 AM
From: Clappy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 104157

One of the memories of Christmas was flashed back to me this past weekend. My oldest son Kevin took it upon himself construct the train set around the Christmas tree. I remember as a kid shoving the pin side of each piece of steel track together of our Lionel Train set. As I went along figuring how many curved pieces it would take to complete the semicircle part of the oval I would often try to see what other shapes I could do with the fixed amount of track pieces. I always wished I had more track so I could make the train have a more elaborate path to follow but after each layout attempt it seem that the oval fit the best under the tree. It was actually more than just an oval. It was like a NASCAR race track with a pit area. There was a switching track that put the train on the desired section of track. The locomotive was powerful and well designed. It's front light lit the way through the darkest section of real estate at the back of the tree and the stack had the ability to puffed smoke. My favorite car was the logging transporter. In it you could stack Lincoln Logs and when it got to a certain stretch of track I could press a button that activated a magnet and the car would dump the logs into a lumber bin. That same magnet could also be used to detach the cars from one another. It would open the coupler and allow you to drop off freight cars while you did a lap or two and came back to get them by backing up the long line of cars until the couplers met and reconnected each other. There was a scale sized train station that lit up when you attached a special clip that drew power from the same two rails that powered the locomotive. We also had tiny trees, people and benches that we could place around the oval. The warm humming transformer had a lever on top of it that allowed you to control the voltage you pushed out and adjusted the speed. After a while I knew which notch on top to turn the lever to so that the train would take the curve just slow enough not to derail itself yet fast enough to make it back to the station in record time. What jogged this memory was when I saw my son's slippers and ankles sticking out from under the tree while hearing the kids version of these symbols: #%$!@&!!# as he reached way back to the same exact deepest section of track as I used to. No matter how careful a person you are, your butt still knocks off two or three Christmas balls as you reach to reset the front two little wheels to get them back in line with the track. Always seemed to happen in the far back section of track. I'd try everything to get it back before crawling under that tree. Lever forward. Lever back. Slow. Fast. Forward. Reverse. Just like having your car stuck in a snow bank, the steel wheels would just spin. But eventually my fingers would find the derailed set of wheels on the logger car or whatever, and I'd give the transformer lever a push with my outstretched big toe and it would start to move! Ah the sound of the locomotive putting those cars! My parents threw out that train set when I was older. I wish we still had it. The one my son set up is a rather simple battery operated set. I may have to see if I can stop by a hobby shop and see if they still make the good ones. -ChooChooCharlie