Sent Wednesday, December 22, 2010. I know, I posted it the very next day. It’s a Christmas miracle!
This is me. Recently I was called out on a cold Saturday night to repair a furnace. As I was driving through the snowy night I remembered a similar night several years ago. It was Christmas night, around nine o’clock when my pager sounded. I was watching one of the movies that I watch every Christmas, and as I pulled myself out of the easy chair, I was grumbling under my breath and not at all happy to be leaving the house on such a cold Christmas night. I pushed the button on the pager and read the message. My annoyance subsided. Old Hank had lost another battle with his old furnace. The furnace seemed to win most of the time.
I wish you could know old Hank. He is an interesting fellow. Him and his lady, I’m not sure if they were ever married although they have spent a life time together, live in a small house. It looks suspiciously like it was a two car garage in an earlier life. It’s rather ramshackle, but solid as the day it was built. The furnace was salvaged from a mobile home some 40 years ago, and has not aged gracefully. But then neither have Hank and his lady, who is named for a flower of some sort. Rose or Daisy or some such thing.
Hank had been a pilot in his younger years. Back in the late thirties he flew mail delivery, did crop dusting, flew acrobatics for carnivals and fairs and so forth. In World War Two he joined the Army Air Corp. He started out flying 2nd stick on a small bomber, but with his natural flying abilities, soon was in the seat of a fighter plane. After the war he bought a small bi-plane, but the days of mail delivery and crop dusting were over, and he could no longer make a living doing what he loved the best. And though he turned to being a carpenter, brick layer, mechanic, and what ever was available to put beer on the table, he never lost his love of flying. Now I’m sure that you have all heard of “barn storming”. Old Hank did it for real. In a real barn. Someone had a barn with a wide door on each end. After careful measurements he determined that his bi-plane could go through the doors and through the barn with a foot to spare on all sides. A crowd gathered. Bets were offered and taken. Hank climbed into his little plane and took off for glory. He circled around and with the engine roaring, he stormed through the first door, through the barn, and out the second door in a perfect storm of flying debris. Hank flipped and flopped across the barn yard, and across the pasture, and came to a stop in relative good order. It is said that lucky for him, his state of inebriation kept him from serious harm. The Good Lord will often smile on a fool. But not always, so be careful. I don’t know if he ever flew again, but I have to wonder, would you lend him your plane after all that?
Old Hank and his flower named lady worked hard and lived harder. And to their credit, there were several taverns and veterans clubs whose bottom line were much improved by virtue of their daily visits. But now in their declining years, poor health and poverty have conspired to keep them at home most of the time. And so I arrived at their unpainted and sagging door, and was made to feel welcome. As I did battle with the old heat machine, Hank regaled me with one story after another. Thirty minutes later, the old girl roared to life with fire exactly where the fire should be. Soon warm air was taking over the dwelling. I packed up my tools and was preparing to leave when Hank advised me that “we mighten ought to have a wee glass of dandelion wine before you step into the night“. I concurred.
From the sideboard he pulled a mason jar of wine. In the cupboard he found a juice glass. It looked like one of the glasses that rolled up chipped beef used to come in, except that this one had a brownish tint. Hank gave the glass a close inspection through his coke bottle spectacles, then tuned it up side down and rapped it sharply on the counter. This happily dislodged whatever it was that was in the bottom of the glass. He then handed me the glass. I decided that the tint could easily be remove with a short soaking in hot soapy water. Old Hank examined his chipped coffee cup, dumped out the left over coffee, and filled cup and glass with a golden yellow dandelion wine. Touching cup to glass, we wished each other a Merry Christmas, and then sampled the golden nectar.
Old Hank has long been known for his excellent homemade wine. This wine was quite the opposite. So I smiled and told a little white Christmas lie and said how good it was. His face beamed, and he refilled the brown tinted glass, much to my chagrin. He bid me to sit and motioned to the sofa. If not for the dog hair, you might have seen the foam of the cushion through the worn old fabric. So I sat, and we sipped dandelion wine and talked of old times, me and Old Hank and his flower named lady. I was thanked profusely and earnestly for coming out on this cold Christmas night to fix their old furnace. I have been thanked many times by many people for doing what I do. Some will even stick a ten or twenty dollar bill in my pocket. But never have I felt more appreciated then I did that Christmas night.
As I took my leave and stepped out in the cold night air, I looked up to the halo surrounding the pole light. Those great big beautiful fluffy flakes of snow were falling out of the night sky. I could not help but think; I am most truly blessed. This is the perfect ending for a very perfect Christmas day. “May God Bless Us, Everyone.“ Merry Christmas. Carl
Tags: Christmas, dandelion wine, pilot
