Christmas Eve Reflections - 9AM 2020
December 24,
2020: Christmas Eve morning, 9AM.
Christmas
music is playing, traditional Christmas music, Bing Crosby, “I’m
dreaming of a white Christmas’, ...‘The Little Drummer Boy’….Felice Navidad (Jose
Feliciano with his son singing with him-great Christmas video), ...“Have yourself
a Merry Little Christmas, or,.... ‘Oh come let us adore him’, memories of past Christmas’,
even to this old, very secular guy. ............Weather: It is going to be cloudy,
chilly, rainy, blustery Christmas Eve and Christmas morning….fitting in a way…the
COVID Pandemic is still raging. It is a terrible time for the country, millions
of people out of work, so many businesses having to close up, so many,
forever..the end is not really in sight despite the delivery of the first
effective vaccine, only a little over 1 million people vaccinated.
TRADITION:.. Looking for normalcy.....One Raleigh tiny tradition of 30
years will be re-visited' by me, this AM, with Florita and I now back in Raleigh after
being down on the NC coast for 20 years – I am going over to nawth' Raleigh, Winston’s Grille,
Falls of Neuse, at 11AM to sit with Wil Oneal, ex son-in-law abd still best friend
(life happens)…. as he leaves the door open to the restaurant, Christmas music
playing, restaurant decorated for Christmas ‘up to the nines’ – the restaurant
closed for dining, but open for his tradition of selling dining gift
certificates (with the bar open, naturelment! )..It is both a convenient
time for some folks to get a last-minute Christmas gift…a Winston’s Grille gift
card …and even more..a time when long-time loyal customers come in to chat and
laugh and renew acquaintances, (glass of wine or martini in hand). Wil Oneal
does this from 10AM to 2PM, some guys, (a few gals) wives drop by for the
traditional camaraderie…everyone wearing masks…Wil has a large open area around
the large bar, decorated up!... pine boughs, large red ribbons, Christmas lights everywhere….T-top
tables 8ft apart, hand sanitizer everywhere…..….’Stretching the envelope’
of course, but some modicum of normalcy has to remain in our lives….Football coaches,
one or two players (reg customers) from the Hurricanes, some NC legislators, just plain people mostly, like me, will drop
in, Bill Cower, the retired, former coach of the Pittsburg Steelers has come in
the past, mostly just good friends and many, many customer friends. It is a
gala time…Then there’s Ron, insurance man.. (Republican, my good friend), Wil’s 25-year customer,
my age, (‘Old Kin’), 80, He will ask ‘if I sent a card to, or did I call… to Donald
Trump’…..Ron will retell his jokes to a standing crowd who has heard them over
two decades +……..“I don’t mind dying…I just don’t want to be gone
that long.”….…or in an argument, (a closer!…) “If I agree with you -then, we’re
both going to be wrong.” Or, ‘What do
you call a bear with no teeth? – A ‘gummy bear!” …..Flo will be talking to
our four gals and the grandkids, now that all of us are in one town – Raleigh
or its nearby environs. So, this Christmas will come and go, like so
many others, to become but a memory, hopefully a lovely one, happy one,,,,, but
knowing full well, …what it is like for so many, many others….only hoping our
leaders can regain their sanity and set the Good Ship America upright
again. Right now, all we can so is hope.
Merry Christmas, amigos, Happy Hanukah, Felice Navidad
Ol’ Kin’......(alias
Don Quixote de la Mancha, Knight errant of the sad countenance.
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