Best Christmas Ever

By Brenda Bowen Wright

            My best Christmas had to be the Christmas of 1978. I started working as an undercover narcotics agent, fresh out of the academy just three months earlier. One of the guys I worked with had asked me if I’d like to work after hours with him doing house-painting. Cops don’t make much money so everyone had second jobs. Besides, our shift was 6:00pm to 2:00 am. Why not work in the morning hours before you go hang out in bars all night? From painting together, Terry and I became best friends. We often discussed dialogs we would use in trying to get complete strangers to sell us illegal drugs. We called these our “Mutt and Jeff” routines, in reference to the famous comic strip of our parent’s era.

            By the end of the year, both of us have about a week of comp time built up and needed to use it before 1979 takes over. Terry asked me if I would like to go to Disneyland with him for the week between Christmas and New Year’s. I was twenty-five years old and had never been to Disneyland so I jumped at the chance. It was no longer fun to sit at home alone with my parents in rural Utah for Christmas. I knew it’d miss the… nope nothing, I would miss nothing by going to Disneyland.

            We journeyed over the desert and found lodging the first night in Las Vegas. I had never seen Vegas. The lights were amazing, more beautiful than anything I had imagined. So many light bulbs, it truly looked like a shining star on the floor of the desert guiding each weary traveler into the city. When I descended into the lights of the city, my sense of hearing was bombarded by the mesmerizing and constant clanging of dropping coins from the old-time slot machines. The noise overwhelming me more than the lights. All the people appeared too joyous, too loud and too drunk. Las Vegas was definitely collecting a lot of taxes from the travelers that night.

Needing to finally escape all the noise and lights of the partiers, Terry and I humbly entered our dirty, animal smelling, worn-out sleazy stable conveniently located above the bar of some two-bit Fremont street inn. That was all we could afford during the holiday. The cigarette smoke wafted up unfiltered from the bar directly into our room. My eyes burned and stung all night. In the morning we roamed the strip sucking up every cheap shrimp cocktail we were offered as we moseyed through a few of the more famous and fancy hotels. Before long, we continued on across the desert to Anaheim and to hopefully a comfortable Christmas Eve.

            I had never seen the freeways of California. That evening they were shrouded in a heavy fog. We could hardly see where to go and had to focus on the steady stream of car lights in front of us. It felt spooky, more like Halloween than Christmas Eve and it was a weirdly warm Christmas Eve compared to what I was used to in Utah. The outdoor holiday lights glowed through thick layer of fog rather than a layer of snow as in Salt Lake City.

We were tired and ready for a rest. Problem was, we hadn’t eaten for many hours and the sun had set. Where do you find a place to eat on a sacred holiday in a huge, foggy, dark city you have never been to? Oh, great tides of joy, we spotted a bar! We knew taverns, worked in them all the time. One particular bar looked like not only a good choice, but the only choice! Hopefully there was room and food in the inn tonight!

            We crawled out of the car with sore butts and backs feeling like we really had rode a mule all the way across the desert to Bethlehem and were eager to relax and eat

The inside of the tavern was like walking into the bar scene from Star Wars. The first Star Wars movie had been released a year earlier and, I could have sworn that we were standing exactly in the middle of that famous bar. The inside was indeed populated with dozens of strange creatures from alien planets. Who seriously goes to a bar on Christmas Eve? Not the three wise men nor the humble shepherds.

            Eventually we were directed to an empty booth. I had a hard time scooting in as the seat was sticky and so was the table top. You had to chew the air in the bar, it was so heavy with smoke of all different flavors and textures. If we both hadn’t been so hungry we would have left but this was our last chance–and we knew nothing would be open on Christmas morning.

            While we are waiting for the waitress, one of Santa’s little elves, who was flying higher than a tree top angel, came bounding over and plopped down into the booth with us. He leaned in too closely and whispered into both our faces with a breath so full of decay it could have knocked over a full-grown reindeer. 

He said, “Hey guys do you want to buy some dope? I’ll give you a real good deal for Christmas.” 

Terry and I worked hard to get good dope deals, and good arrests. Only now, on vacation, does someone plop down next to us and, with no conversation, no planning, he just asks if he can sell illegal drugs to us. Please.

            Terry looked at me with one of those can-you-believe-this eye rolls. We both had our badges and guns, but seriously? I held back an explosive laugh while Terry diplomatically said, “No thanks dude, but we appreciate the offer.”

            When he left we both laughed until I had to wipe away tears. That poor boy would never know he is the luckiest drug dealer, at least for that moment. He had just propositioned two narcs but the star shone round about him and the glory was his. He got away scot-free. 

            I don’t even remember what we ate, I just remember it was greasy. And, for the rest of the journey, my clothes reeked of grease and cigarette smoke from the lousy mangers we were swaddled in, in Las Vegas and Anaheim.

            And ah yes, Disneyland was open on Christmas Day. We felt we had the park to ourselves. We guessed that only Asians, Mid-Eastern Indians and a couple of other non-Christians were all that dared to venture out to play on Christmas day. 

Terry and I started as just friends on this sojourn, so I was rather confused when he came running back to me after being away a minute, pleading, “Quick put your arms around me and pretend we are a couple.” I did and had to ask, “Why? What’s up?” 

He explained, “Some guy just put his hand on my butt and squeezed tight. I want him to see that I am here romantically with a woman!”

We floated along in the old pirate ride, by ourselves, at least a half dozen times and I may have gotten a good kiss then. 

We had a lot to reminisce and laugh about as we rode the metal donkey back to Salt Lake City a few days later with knowing each other a lot deeper than either of us had actually planned. It was an odd but magical trip that Christmas probably because we fell in love with each other during that first comical holiday together.

Being Lost

By Brenda Bowen Wright, Jan 2019

       I was very young, therefore being lost may be my earliest memory. And, it is probably why today, over sixty years later, I carry a great fondness for store mirrors.
There are three years between us three oldest siblings. If I was three years old, my older brother was six, and my mother would have had an infant in her arms. I don’t recall any younger sibling at all at this event, so that puts me between two and three years old. If Mom were holding a baby or just very pregnant, maybe that would account for why no one was holding my hand. Maybe my older brother was supposed to be watching me, I don’t know. I know my older brother and both my parents and I, at the least us four, all went together to the vast, modern Sears Store on 800 South State Street in Salt Lake City. This had to be in the mid-1950s.
I remember the terrifying vision of so many people squeezed into such a large place. People were bumping into each other and pressing to get passed others. The sea of people flowed all around me. From my point of view, all I saw and felt were the paddling of millions of legs. The chorus of voices became just noise as I couldn’t tell what anyone, in particular, was saying. Incredible things to stare at and wonder about were everywhere. I even remember the brightness of the store lights, seemingly brighter than outside. The entire store experience was a massive sensory overload for me.
I can’t really remember what happened but I just suddenly looked around and realized I did not see one familiar face. Not a familiar sight anywhere. I absolutely had no idea what to do or where to go. But there, right next to me was a floor length mirror and I could see myself. I remember the relief flood through me in seeing a familiar face inside the mirror—my own face. I’m not too sure I even knew the concept of a mirror when I found this life buoy in the store.
I sat down in front of the mirror and leaned in very close so I could put my cheek on my reflection’s cheek. There I sat, all bunched up so as not to be stepped on and I cried and cried. I remember looking at my crying reflection and being entertained strangely by it. I honestly figured I would never see my parents or my big brother ever again. I had not a moment’s thought of what to do, that was beyond my capacity to even consider. All I could do was cry and stare at myself.
I often wonder how long I sat lost and heart-sick over the loss of parents and brother. Of course, to me, it seemed forever. But, how long was it actually before one of them realized I was no longer with them? I will probably never know the actual truth as the only answer I got from my parents in later years was the usual, “It wasn’t long at all.” And then they never wanted to talk about it, just swept it under the rug as inconsequential. But it was a huge deal to me and I apparently never forgot the experience.
I have accepted that my parents were not the soft, touchy-feely kind. They never indulged in any overt display of affection between themselves or any of their children.  Maybe that was just the way parents were in the 1950s. But seriously, why was I not holding a parent’s hand?
With my own experience of being around nieces, nephews and friend’s children, I have felt and seen the extreme panic a parent goes through when they can’t spot their child.
I guess I would like to think my Mom and Dad were upset and scared when I went missing. It would have been comforting through all these years, to know they panicked and feared the loss of a treasured daughter.
But whatever the truth may be, I did eventually feel the gentle lifting as my father picked me up from in front of the mirror. I don’t remember a kiss or any comforting. But, it is the only memory I have of being carried by a parent. Soon I was set back on my own feet with the indelibly warning to stay close, or I would get lost again.
Believe me, I never became lost again, and I grew to become an extreme worry-wart over keeping track of my younger siblings and then my nieces and nephews. It even became a personal hell for me to have to be responsible for classes of students on field trips. I have an obsession with knowing where everyone is at every moment to an obnoxious point.
Thinking about losing people makes me anxious. That subject still headlines in my occasional nightmares.
I heard the Sears store on 8th South and State Street is slated to be torn down if it hasn’t been already. I hated that store and would not enter it for many, many years. My husband made me go into it, back in the 1980s, just to see if it still looked and felt the same. It did.
Although I never liked that particular department store, I still retain a fondness for each and every mirror I see in a store, especially full-length ones. I always find myself seeking the location of store mirrors, and I still feel comforted when I look into a mirror to see at least one familiar face staring back at me.
        

Satirical Science Fiction - how's that for a genre?

Imagine if you could take all the Gary Larsen cartoons and create novels from each one of them...

That sounds positively delicious to me.

Humans often are stuck in the belief that outside of human life, nothing has personality. If you are plant, you don't fall in love, you don't even communicate--Or do they? Maybe plant communication is  just on a level or in a form we are not familiar with.

What if bacteria have lives full of frustrations and desires and love, but we can't decipher their language.

I was a middle-school science teacher, who still wants to explain scientific facts in a fun warped as skillfully as Gary Larsen.

My books and stories will be announced as quickly as I can get them out. They will be STEM infused, fun, entertaining, thought-provoking and smashed full of learning. (Remember mom hiding peas in the mashed potatoes to get you to eat them? Yes, call me mom.)

Find samplings of stories on my web page: www.brendabowenwright.com

I want to be an author.
As with any new skill, you must practice, practice, practice. Five years have elapsed since my last entry.  Many things have happened in those five years.
1. I am now retired.  After 24 years of teaching junior high school science, I am now free to do whatever the hell I please.
2. My husband and I are separated.  This means divorce without all the messy stuff that goes along with divorce.  We still talk and enjoy each others friendship.  More talk about this later maybe.
3. I want to be a writer. I have such and urge, a need to express myself. This is probably because most all of my life I have kept my mouth shut like a lady should (?).  Plus I am a poster child for the Introvert Society.

So I'm back and hopefully will have more of the same but a whole lot more of new including updates on my first book!  Wahoo!

There were only two seats left on the TRAX platform this time and the seats were separated from each other by a gorgeous black man.  Hubby took the closer seat as I walked past the man to sit on his other side next to a dyed-red-headed woman.  She was about as tall as me and about my age but wore her age very hard.  She hadn't had an easy life.  She was beautifully tattooed across her chest and her eyes hinted of humor and life knowledge.   Just as I was bending into a sitting position, red-headed lady jumped up and said what I thought was, "is that your bag?"
I looked at the black man and indeed there was a backpack on the seat with him, just to his side which would be next to me also... but pretty obviously his.
  I answered the lady by saying, "no, it's not mine".
 "Oh, ok" she answered and she sat back down.
 But as I thought for a moment I began to realize maybe she wasn't talking about the bag, because it didn't fit why she had jumped up so quickly and then just sat back down.
 So, I finally ask her, "Did you ask me if that bag was mine?"
 She said, "oh no, I ask if that man was yours.  I figured you wanted to sit by him", as she pointed out my hubby.
     "Oh"  I laughed.  "He is mine but I don't need to sit by him. Sometimes it is just nice to not have to sit together but thanks so much for going to give up your sit for me".
Then we started to talk and laugh.  We talked about our jobs and that we were both heading home and yes, we were tired!

    Well, we all got on the train together and she ended up right across the aisle from hubby and I.  I said to hubby, "this nice lady was going to give up her seat so I could sit by you."  and we all introduced each other. 

 Hubby asks his favorite question, "where are you originally from?"

She answers "New Jersey" and hubby just had to ask next:

 "and what brought you to Salt Lake City?"

    "Oh, dear", she said, "you had to ask".
"Well it's ok if you don't want to say", says hubby.
"No, I'll tell you" she begins but no longer does she talk with the happy-lighthearted lilt in her voice.
"One day", she quickly throws out, "there was a very bad accident and my husband and four children were killed.  I had a boy 9 yrs. old, a girl 7, another girl 3 and a baby boy of  18 months.  All killed." 
   She had been talking to her lap but then she looked up at hubby and said, "I got in my car and decided I was going to go to California no matter what.  I drove and drove and my car broke down here in Salt Lake.  I had to get a job to pay of the car bill and I have been here ever since."

Hubby and I just sat and stared for like an eternity at her.

 She continues, "I work any job I can get, I'm not like other people who say they won't work unless they get twenty bucks and hour, I will even work for ten bucks an hour.  I clean houses.  But today I even held a picket sign for two hours in front of a Maverick Store for a lady who paid me $20.00.  I've had some bad times but they were my own fault.  No one else is to blame."
She added this bit on to the end of the story and my hubby looks at her closely, puts his hands on his knees, leans in to her and asks, "Trouble with drinking?"
She nods a yes like she hasn't been able to verbalize it too much yet.  Then she falls silent for a moment.

"But, I'm over that now and I will work doing anything."  She says, "I'm 54 and I've been in Salt Lake for 27 years.  Half my life here so it's my home and my neighbors are my best friends.  Immediately she was back up to happy again and we laughingly talked about the picket line she walked on that day until we had to part.

   This is one passenger I really want to see again.  I miss her.

We're all talking again

Nobody talks to anyone in February. 

 Nobody.  

It is quiet on TRAX. 

 People huddle in their coats to try and stay warm. 

 Some ride TRAX because the street life is too cold 

and not being able to sleep out in the cold they board TRAX early and sleep on the seats. 

 I watch as many heads nod in the rhythm of the train riding on the rails.

Everyone just stares or sleeps in the darkness of the morning as we go and in the darkness of the evening and as we return.

But it is now March and it is warmer and the sun is nearly up when we arrive at our destinations. 

 People are talking.  

People are listening in on conversations and are smiling and nodding and saying hello.  

Oh how I love that people are talking again!

Gone for another year is February.

 This last one we just endured, I won't miss Feb. 2013 a single bit.

They stepped off the "Dust Bowl" platform onto our train.

Deeply carved faces exhibiting wear above what any average life could experience, what only survivors of the 1930's dust bowl had endured.  They wore hair dried and brittle from days on end of blowing desiccant bombarding each strand. With eyes red-rimmed and unfocused, a bit too watery as if glands still wanted to quench recently parched eyeballs, the two of them searched for a seat.

Were they officially older women?  I don't know, hard to tell by the age masking effects of a severely hard life.  One wore very heavy makeup that only accentuated the lines and furrows of her forehead eyes and neck.  But it was obvious why she put so much make-up on as a deep purplish blue bruise glowed from under the pancake make-up on her left cheek bone.  The lower eye-lid on the left eye, being slightly swollen, was inhibiting her upper lid from traveling the entire distance to close the eye at each blink.  The result was a look at constantly winking at whatever she gazed at.

The talked and laughed lightly yet unconcerned about anyone who might be eavesdropping.  Their body and hand movements seemed over exaggerated, maybe all for attention as they and plopped into the seat across from hubby and I. 

But, by golly, these pair of ladies were dressed to the nines, flouncy blouses under mangy fake fur coats,  hoary calloused, disjointed feet wedged in scandals, freshly pressed and cleaned trousers - all clothing much too lightweight for a cold night like tonight. It was as if they hoped all the clanking heavy costume jewelry would ward off winter frost bite.

Where had they been? I thought.  Where had they walked from to get to this platform?

 And maybe better yet, where were they going?