The View From Here . . .

Since it is still very much the holiday season, perhaps I can squeeze out one more “soft” column before going back to the more usual diet of commentary on world and national affairs.

This week, young Robert will be getting a bicycle for Christmas, as well as a number of computer age gizmos, but for some reason the bicycle has captured his fancy. I am not the most mechanically inclined individual, so for the lad’s safety, as well as my own mental health, I paid the fairly nominal charge for assembly. The bicycle is a bit out of season as a gift but he still should be able to use it fairly extensively between now and the actual beginning of spring.

All of this got me thinking about some of the favorite gifts I received in the distant past. I did get a bicycle when I was eight, but for my birthday rather than Christmas. Unlike Robert’s bicycle, which has 21 gears and hand brakes (despite not being expensive), mine merely had foot brakes. But it was green and sleek and 24 inches and was a big part of my life for a number of years.

Other memories of gifts at Christmas included waking up early to see what presents were under the tree. One year, I got a chemistry set and started my experiments before the sun rose.

But I guess my favorite Christmas gift of all occurred on a train trip in December 1962 (I was ten, Robert’s current age) during our family’s vacation that year to Jekyl Island, Georgia. I had a mild ear infection so it was decided that I would go on the train with my mother and two year old brother, and we would meet up with the rest of the family who were traveling by car.

When we reached Wilmington, my mother gave me a tiny transistor radio, new technology at the time. I eagerly opened it and inserted the batteries. However, try as I might, I couldn’t get the radio to work, and neither could my mother.

Finally, we got to a place called Nahunta, Georgia, population around 500, where we were supposed to wait for my relatives. Nahunta had one main street, a gas station, an old building called the Knox Hotel with a fading sign advertising $2 a night rates and, most crucially for me, a hardware store. We took the radio into the store and the owner quickly determined that the only problem with the radio was that the batteries were put in backwards. (There were many fewer portable devices in those days, and not everybody knew about battery polarity.)

Finally, the radio worked, and I was enthralled, and indeed I have been a radio fan ever since. It helped that Jekyl Island, when we finally got there, had an oceanic environment, and the radio, even though it was AM only, could pick up stations from a great deal of the country; I remember, for example, getting WWL in New Orleans as well as Chicago stations. There was a whole world out there – music, news and sports. I listened to the Giants-Green Bay NFL championship game from Yankee Stadium on the way home.

While the holidays are often overcommercialized, gifts can create a bond between receiver and giver. Maybe Robert will remember the Christmas he got the bike, maybe not. But the creation of memories, or at least our efforts to create them, are one reason we celebrate at this time of year.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah to all.