A Memorable "Holy Night" in Greentown

 

It was my 12th Christmas, and it took place in the center of my

universe: Greentown, Indiana—a town of about a thousand

people. Though there have more than a half-century of

them since, I still remember the key events of that particular

season that taught me the most about the Christmas message.

 

Part One

It started one day as my dad and I were on our front porch

and putting the new Christmas Tree on a stand. As usual,

we needed to cut off a few small branch pieces at the bottom

to make the tree fit into the holder.

 

While we were doing this Mrs. Rogers was walking by and

asked if she could have some of the small pieces we had cut off.

Her plan was to put one of them into a flowerpot and make a

little Christmas tree for her house.

 

It’s important to note that Mrs. Rogers was short, dumpy, had

very wrinkled skin, hair best described as mottled, and every

third tooth was missing.  I remember she was always

smiling and happy, though.

 

She did ironing for our family and others in the town. I

Remember asking my mother one day why we hired Mrs.

Rogers to do the ironing. We even had a new-fangled gadget

called an “automatic iron”, similar to what one finds in

professional cleaning establishments. My mother said

Mrs. Rogers needed the money very badly, and this was

a way for her to get it.

 

Part Two

One reason our Christmas trees always looked so good is

Because my father was a member of the American Legion,

and they were the big tree sellers in the town. It was an annual

fund-raising event for them and one perk is that Legionnaires

always got the best trees first.

 

One place where the trees were sold was a gas station near to

my house.

 

One day I was on my front porch when I saw a young

man from my school acting strangely near the trees that were

for sale. Suddenly his father put a tree in the back of his car and

the two of them drove off. I then realized the man hadn’t paid

for the tree and his son was acting as a lookout.

 

I immediately ran into my house and told my mother we must

call the town marshal for someone had just stolen a Christmas

tree! My mother, though, had a different idea. Let’s wait

until your dad gets home and talk to him about it.

 

Great! Dad would really be mad and I’d be a hero for uncovering

The “crime of the century”.

 

Well, dad was upset all right, but not for the reasons I thought.

He was very unhappy because the man hadn’t come to dad and

say he wanted a tree and didn’t have the money. He was also

very unhappy that the man had used his son to help with the

theft.

 

For the first time ever I saw a compassion in my father I

didn’t know existed until that Christmas season.

 

 

Part Three

The next part of this story involves the first time I remember

hearing the carol “O Holy Night”. It was a very special time and

I remember it as though it was just last Christmas.

 

We had a brand new school gymnasium. As anyone in Indiana

knows, high school basketball was a key ingredient to a

community’s culture. The town only had a thousand

residents, but the basketball gym held twice that many.

 

We didn’t really have a football team then, so the band did

most of its marching in the gym during basketball half-times.

(Being a small school helped. Not a lot of space was

required.)

 

But on this particular evening the choir did the half-time

presentation. And at one point they were all in the shape of a

Christmas tree, holding small red and green lights, and the

gymnasium went completely dark—except for the “tree”

lights. And then I heard the choir and a soloist (I still

remember her name) sing “O Holy Night”.

 

I remember asking several people what that song was, and

wondering why I had never heard it before. But the tune

and many of the words were imbedded in my brain from that

moment. And all of the memories aren’t just Christmas ones.

Years later as I would march andsing “We Shall

Overcome” and other similar songs, I always remembered the words from that

carol: “Truly He taught us to love one another.”

 

Part Four

The fourth and final part of the memory came the next night,

Christmas Eve. My father had a store downtown and they were

always open on Saturday nights. I had been at the store on some

errand and was getting ready to go home when my dad said I

should go to one of the places selling trees, find the best one,

and take it to Mrs. Rogers’ house.

 

I’m sure I had a big grin because I remember the smile on my

dad’s face, which was his reaction to my reaction. Again, I

began to see a different side to my father than I knew existed.

 

I went to the tree lot and picked a tree very carefully, and then

began walking the few blocks to where Mr. and Mrs. Rogers

lived. It was a warm evening and my jacket was open.

 

Each year a great aunt would always give me an envelope at

Christmas and inside would either be a two-dollar bill or two

one-dollar bills. This year it was two new and crisp dollar bills.

 

Before getting to the Rogers’s home I took those two dollars

out of my wallet and put them in the tree where they would

easily be seen, but not right away.

 

I knocked and Mr. Rogers opened the door. I suddenly couldn’t

speak and just held up the tree. “Is that for us?” he asked. I just

nodded and smiled for speaking wasn’t possible for meat that

moment. And then he smiled.

 

More than a half-century has passed and to this day I can vividly

remember that man’s joyous expression representing the pleasure

of receiving a real Christmas tree. The fact that it was a leftover

tree didn’t matter. All that mattered to that man was that

someone cared enough to share it.

 

I never told my father about giving away the two dollars

(at a time when Coca-Cola and candy bars sold for a nickel

each). Sometimes I wonder what smile was on Mr. Rogers’

face when he found the money.

 

And here’s what we call the “kicker” to the story.

 

As I left that house to go home they began playing Christmas

music on the public address system of the nearby Methodist

Church. The music was always chimes, and it was on records.

 

On that very warm Christmas Eve in 1955 I again heard the tune

that was playing in my head from a few nights before.

 

Whenever I still hear that lovely melody I still remember about a

young boy who learned his father had compassion and how he

found a strange joy in giving much of what he had to someone

who didn’t have anything.