Christmas Letter 2002

Christmas Letter 2000
I have been seeing or experiencing Christmases since 1916, or a total of 84 of
them. In my young years while growing up the most expensive presents we ever
got was a dozen or two of apples and about that many of oranges. At about the
time I was 6 years old my father bought a little red wagon for my brother and
I. We and the neighboring Hollingsworth cousins tore the wagon up in about a
month. My dad never bought another wagon Christmas present after that. He
allowed we would only tear it to pieces. He did continue buying the fruit and
sometimes 5 or 10 cents worth of peppermint candy. He did that until I was a
grown boy. Thinking back about him, that was all the gifts he could afford. I
don’t recall him ever making over $500 in any one year. It was all he was
able to do was to keep us fed with mostly groceries grown on the farm. For heat
in the winter at Christmas he burned wood cut from his place with a cross cut
saw with me pulling one end of it after I got big enough. When I was 15-17
years old we cleared the trees from about 10 acres of woodland on which to grow
corn. It is a miracle that I didn’t get killed doing that. After spending
spare time clearing each winter we had a log rolling to pile the logs in a big
heap for burning. We must have burned up several thousand dollars worth of
timber at present 2000 AD prices. At a log rolling the neighboring men come in
to help pile the logs and their wifes come to help prepare the meals. They had
a talking, hard working time on those days and got fed bountifully.

After the log rolling and the piles were burned came the plowing of the cleared
field. It was my dad and me for the plowing with a gee whizz plow. The gee
whizz had spring teeth to plow the ground with and the teeth were constantly
swinging back and forth while plowing. Sometimes you received a hard knock on
the leg or ankle with that plow. But I had to take whatever knocks came my way.
I wished I had a mechanical plowing machine to do the work, but machines that
ran on own power were only a pipe dream at that time for us on a poor farm.

We did have a Christmas tree after I was in my teens and maybe before, but I
don’t recollect the before. We would cut a little cedar tree and brace it up
in the front room. My sister Clancy would do the decorating. The decorating was
done with home made decorations at practically no expense. Cut up aluminum foil
and strung popped popcorn around the tree. Throw the cut up aluminum foil on
the sides of the tree and do other cheap things I have forgotten about. The
Christmases were just as merry then as they are now. We didn’t know how poor
we were financially. Everyone in the community was in same shape and didn’t
know the difference. We didn’t know we were disadvantaged by present
standards. My dad’s old farm, which I have today, has yeilded many thousands
of dollars in timber and gas royalty. I regret that my parents and young family
never got any benefits of that. The good timber on your place would sell for
about $200 back in those days. Today mature timber would sell for $100,000.
Money has gradually cheapened and is getting cheaper.
The water for the farm was drawn with a windlass and well bucket
For our water needs. Washed your hands in a common washpan and drank from a
waterbucket with a cheap dipper. Dippers were sometimes made from gourds and
the fanciest costliest dipper was a cedar one. No attention was paid to getting
germs. Sanitation and safety were on a primitive level.
In the 1930s president Roosevelt started dishing out government money to needy
families and the amount of the dish has been getting greater through the 1900s.
The country would be in sad financial shape without the welfare payments.
Farmers with sophisticated equipment are growing the food and grain products.
The mule farmers have vanished. It’s anyone’s guess as to what may happen
in the future if the US has financial reverses. But the politicians say nothing
like that can happen. Let us hope so. My Christmases have been better since I
went to Berry College in 1937 and obtained a starting job at US Steel in
Birmingham, Al. at $90 per month. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Fred and
Bettie Cline McCaleb